Loblolly Hillcrest
is inching closer to offering its new line of soft serve ice cream from the landmark Kavanaugh Boulevard building that was formerly home to the original Damgoode Pies.
Currently, the new shop is offering walk-up window service Thursday through Sunday for ice cream pints and cups, as well as a new line of ice cream sandwiches sold exclusively in Hillcrest, but the soft serve has yet to make its official debut.
Loblolly Creamery — which has two scoop shop locations, one in Little Rock’s SoMa neighborhood and one in Benton, along with a “Loblolly Outpost” at the Pinnacle Mountain State Park Visitor Center —
announced the “twist on our regularly scheduled programming” in May
when owner
Sally Mengel
revealed that the new Hillcrest neighborhood location was going to be swapping the scooping for soft serve.
During a tour of Loblolly’s new Hillcrest digs on Friday, Mengel said that her favorite way to eat Loblolly ice cream is right after it has been churned. “I wanted people to experience our ice cream right out of the churner, and that is soft serve,” she said.
Mengel said her team is perfecting the recipes and developing a completely scratch-made menu of soft serve mixes. Six flavors will be offered at a time with three twists (two flavors swirled together) and two nondairy options, Mengel said. She plans to always have chocolate and sweet cream flavors available, and two flavors will rotate monthly, she said.
We got to sample the sweet cream and chocolate twist, which was great on a scorching summer afternoon: creamy, more airy than Loblolly’s traditional hard body scoops and so cold.
The two soft serve nondairy flavors on our visit were mango sorbet and vanilla oat milk. Mengel said the nondairy mixtures make for really good soft serve, so that’s exciting news for the neighborhood’s dairy-free ice cream fans.
The shop will debut the new soft serve on National Ice Cream Day, Sunday, July 20, which is also the company’s 14th birthday. It will serve as a kind of open house for the Hillcrest location, Mengel said. All of Lobolly’s locations will be celebrating and offering free mini cones to the first 50 people in line. At the Hillcrest shop, people will still order at the window, but they are also welcome to pop inside and check out the new digs. The following week, Loblolly Hillcrest will be hosting soft openings at the shop.
Mengel said that Loblolly Hillcrest eventually plans to offer soft serve cones dips in rolled toppings, concretes and novelty items like chocolate tacos and ice cream sandwiches to order. Fidel & Co coffee will also be on hand for affogatos and cold brew shakes, and fans of the company’s hard body ice cream will still be able to purchase pints.
Loblolly Hillcrest (2701 Kavanaugh Blvd.) is currently offering window hours Thursday-Friday from 5-9 p.m.; Saturday from noon-9 p.m.; Sunday from noon-5 p.m. Here is the current Hillcrest menu:
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