Your average ice creamery might not turn many heads these days, but the ones serving up a show with rolled ice cream seem to do the trick. At least locally. This red-hot craze in frozen sweets made its way to Tampa Bay last year, and new businesses specializing in the trendy Thai-style treat — also known as stir-fried ice cream — have taken off ever since.
By CL's count, there are at least eight ice cream rollers around town: Mr. Ice Cream, Icesmile, Snobachi Handcrafted Ice Cream, IceBurg Frozen Yogurt, 35 Below, Snowman Ice Cream, Snowrolls and H20°C (did we miss any?). Sweet Charlie's, which began as a hometown ice cream and froyo shop in Philadelphia two years ago, will be the region's latest when it debuts in St. Petersburg at 1010 Central Ave.
With an anticipated fall opening, the EDGE District location is the third franchise for the corporation, which prides itself on delivering the freshest ice cream possible — so much so that the company created its own ice cream base to stand out from the crowd.
"Most of the ice cream that is out there right now, even other rolled ice cream places, uses powder and other formula as their base," said Steven Billig, CFO and co-founder of Sweet Charlie's. "That is something we did not want to do. So we went ahead and came up with our own private label formula that we that we get weekly from a dairy farm."
The new Sweet Charlie's will occupy 1,500 square feet of what used to be Yoga Energy Studio. Owners Lisa Terefenko and Jim Kennedy are set to run the place.
"We found them on a news broadcast over a year ago and loved the concept, so we reached out and started this process," Terefenko said.
Menu items reflect the company's innovative attitude. Once customers reach the order counter, they pick from bases of premium ice cream, nonfat yogurt or Nada-Moo, the vegan option (!). Then the fun begins, as flavors like Off Duty (coffee and doughnuts), Namaste (strawberry cheesecake), and Death By Chocolate (chocolate, brownies and chocolate chips) must also be decided.
"The actual ice cream gets put on the cold plate. It is a cold plate that Sweet Charlie's designed," said Billig. "It has to be left on the cold plate for about two minutes from when it actually turns from liquid to the ice cream that you are able to roll."
Choose-your-own toppings are part of the mixing and flipping and scraping, everything from roasted marshmallow to sliced almonds to caramel drizzle. And for the adventurers at heart, a signature offering called the Tall Charlie — a single roll sandwiched between a 6-inch oven-baked glazed doughnut — might hit the spot more than a straight-up cup.
Sweet Charlie's St. Pete hopes to open by late October. Hours of operation are being finalized, but the rolled ice cream parlor's goal remains the same.
"We hope to bring a fun and exciting concept of the ice cream industry to St. Pete," Terefenko said.
This article appears in Sep 21-28, 2017.