New York/ Food & Drinks
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Published on July 20, 2017
The Scoop On America's Top 50 Ice Creameries: Is New York City On Top?Peanut butter cream cheese ice cream with peanut butter chocolate ooey gooey butter cake. | Photo: Ample Hills Creamery/Facebook

With summer right around the corner, ice cream shops around the country are about to get a lot busier. But when it comes to getting the best ice cream around, do you know where to go?

To get the scoop, Hoodline crunched the numbers to find the top 50 ice cream shops around the country, using Yelp data from May and our own signature recipe to produce a data-driven breakdown of where America’s most iconic ice cream establishments call home—and how New York City ranks.

Over 18,700 ice creameries across the country have a 4.0- star average rating or higher on Yelp, as seen on our map here. We did the math to narrow that number down to the top 50.

As it turns out, New Yorkers are well represented, with two of the nation’s best ice cream operations. The highest-ranking spot, at #21, is Ample Hills Creamery, a Brooklyn staple since 2011, that has an impressive 4.5- star average with 1,071 reviews.

What makes Ample Hills special? Its creative flavors contribute to its popularity. Well known for its Ooey Gooey Butter Cake (the creamiest vanilla ice cream with gobs of St. Louis-style ooey gooey butter cake), Peppermint Pattie (cool peppermint ice cream with homemade peppermint patties and flakes of semi-sweet chocolate) and The Commodore (salty honey ice cream with chocolate-covered potato chip clusters and honeycomb candy), the creamery makes all of its ice cream and baked mix-ins, like honeycomb candy, pistachio brittle and brownies, in-house. Its close proximity to Flatbush Avenue’s many shops and restaurants also helps to attract the crowds.

Next on the list at #41, you'll find Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, which landed on our list with a lower 4.0- star average, but with a large number of reviews at 2,231—weighting it more favorably than most other ice cream boutiques in the country. With a long list of regular ice cream flavors, such as black sesame, zen butter and coconut fudge, it also serves up an extensive offering of exotic and specialty menu items, including homemade ice cream cakes.

Want to know where to score the creamiest, most delicious ice cream the country has to offer? Here's the rundown of America’s top 50 can’t miss ice creameries:

  1. Bobboi Natural Gelato (La Jolla)
  2. Gelatology (Las Vegas)
  3. Milk (Los Angeles)
  4. Ici Ice Cream (Berkeley)
  5. Salt & Straw (Portland)
  6. Island Cream Co. (Lahai)
  7. Mitchell’s Ice Cream (San Francisco)
  8. Scoops (Los Angeles)
  9. Gunther’s Quality Ice Cream (Sacramento)
  10. Saffron & Rose Ice Cream (Los Angeles)
  11. Fentons Creamery (Oakland)
  12. Marianne’s Ice Cream (Santa Cruz)
  13. Carmela Ice Cream (Pasadena)
  14. Mr. and Mrs. Miscellaneous (San Francisco)
  15. Toscanini’s Ice Cream (Cambridge)
  16. Marco Polo Italian Ice Cream (San Francisco)
  17. Little Man Ice Cream (Denver)
  18. Leopold’s Ice Cream (Savannah)
  19. The Penny Ice Creamery (Santa Cruz)
  20. Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream (San Francisco)
  21. Ample Hills Creamery (Brooklyn)
  22. Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream and Yogurt (Redondo Beach)
  23. Mashti Malone’s Ice Cream (Los Angeles)
  24. Lick Honest Ice Creams (Austin)
  25. Holy Gelato! (San Francisco)
  26. Treat Ice Cream Company (San Jose)
  27. Gelateria Naia (San Francisco)
  28. Hammond’s Gourmet Ice Cream (San Diego)
  29. Swensen’s Ice Cream (San Francisco)
  30. Strickland’s Ice Cream (Irvine)
  31. 8 Half Desserts (Honolulu)
  32. Afters Ice Cream (Fountain Valley)
  33. Tara’s Organic Ice Cream (Berkeley)
  34. Helados Pops Ice Cream (San Fernando)
  35. à la minute (Redlands)
  36. Pazzo Gelato (Los Angeles)
  37. Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream (San Francisco)
  38. Sweet Action Ice Cream (Denver)
  39. Capogiro Gelato (Philadelphia)
  40. Tin Pot Creamery (Palo Alto)
  41. Chinatown Ice Cream Factory (New York)
  42. Mariposa Ice Cream (San Diego)
  43. Smitten Ice Cream (San Francisco)
  44. McConnell’s Fine Ice Creams (Santa Barbara)
  45. Cookies & Cream (South Pasadena)
  46. Wanderlust Creamery (Tarzana)
  47. YERSEN Gelato Cakes (Danville)
  48. Fosselman’s Ice Cream (Alhambra)
  49. Churn (Phoenix)
  50. Quenelle (Burbank)