Later this fall, Drake neighborhood’s beloved Black Cat Ice Cream plans to expand into West Des Moines with a brand new location.
Although Black Cat had initially planned to open the new location on Sept. 1, the shop posted on Instagram on Aug. 24 that the opening was delayed. A new opening date has not been given.
This expansion is set to arrive just over three years after the opening of Black Cat Ice Cream’s current location south of Drake University. The parlor has become a staple of the surrounding community by providing uniquely flavored homemade ice cream year-round.
As Black Cat superfan Drake student Hailey Grotluschen put it, the parlor is “perfect for me to walk to and go to with my friends, and it’s such a beautiful spot in the Drake area. It’s a great place to grab a treat and hang out for a while. And, it helps that the ice cream is to die for.”
One Black Cat employee, Sydney, said that people come to the parlor for a unique combination of community and quality ice cream.
“I think people come here for a sense of community,” she said. “I think that’s what’s special about us, along with the atmosphere of the building. It’s cool, it’s a place to gather and enjoy some good ice cream and meet other people in your community.”
A lot of Black Cat Ice Cream’s recognizability within the surrounding community has spawned from the unique flavors that fans keep coming back for. Some of their best-selling flavors include their rich Red Velvet Oreo and sweet Brown Butter Cookie Dough, but for Black Cat, much of what makes them unique comes from the creative flavors that cycle through the menu. For example, in 2022, a unique “Killer Bee” Halloween-themed flavor that combines honey, habanero peppers and burnt sugar won flavor of the year in the Midwest from the North American Ice Cream Association.
Black Cat Ice Cream also offers a fan-favorite menu item that doesn’t quite fit the bill of usual ice cream parlor offerings. The item, coined ice cream nuggets, are handmade ice cream versions of chicken nuggets, in which the uniquely flavored ice cream is wrapped in various types of cereal breading and chocolate.
“They come in a pack of six,” Sydney said about the ice cream nuggets. “You can have two flavors and a house-made dipping sauce. They’re pretty similar to fried ice cream.”
Black Cat Ice Cream’s new location will open in Valley Junction and will feature a much larger indoor space than its current location near Drake University, which offers primarily outdoor seating. Alongside this, the new location will provide Black Cat’s team with a much larger kitchen, allowing them to explore even more new flavorful possibilities with more freedom than ever.
The Valley Junction area isn’t unfamiliar to the Black Cat brand, as the shop’s food truck has served at the weekly Valley Junction farmers market for several years.
As far as their success is concerned in the Valley Junction area, it’s hard to imagine that Black Cat Ice Cream will have any trouble becoming a staple of this historic downtown district.
