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Your A-List: Best Ice Cream
How do you keep cool in the hot Central Texas heat? Ice cream, naturally. Even when it’s chilly outside, there’s something to the comfort food that just seems to warm your spirits.
And when it comes to the tasty frozen treat, there’s one name that stands out among the rest here in Austin. With 73 percent of the vote, Amy’s Ice Creams is the winner of the Your A-List poll for favorite ice cream in Austin.
Amy’s started out as a partnership between Amy Miller (now Simmons) and her partner Scott Shaw, who launched the original shop on Guadalupe Street on the backs of some creative vision and a hot check. More than 20 years later, with Shaw having moved on to pursue other interests, Amy’s is dominating the Austin ice cream scene with 10 stores, and a few more in Houston and San Antonio.
What makes Amy’s so awesome? Well, beyond the 14 percent butterfat, it’s probably the creative spirit and joy of ice cream that is so pervasive in each of the Amy’s location. The stores have a unique history of asking applicants to express their creativity on paper bags when applying for jobs.
Simmons wants her employees to be as creative as the business itself, which has made a name for itself thanks in part to its community involvement, kitschy decor and, not the least, the trademark photo booths. The old-timey black-and-white photo booths in the stores allow friends, couples and families to save their memories on celluloid, ice creamy smiles and all.
Amy’s Ice Cream [site]
Multiple locations
Others receiving votes:
- Marble Slab, 7 percent
- Ben & Jerry’s, 5 percent
- Baskin Robbins, 5 percent
- Dairy Queen, 4 percent
- Cold Stone, 3 percent
- Maggie Moo’s, 2 percent
- Carvel, <1 percent
- Kaleidoscoops, <1 percent
Write-ins:
- Austin Scoops
- Culver’s
- HEB’s 1905 Vanilla
- Paciugo
- Teo’s
A personal aside: I pretty much stick to gelato these days (Pagiugo, Teo’s), but when I want ice cream, I head to Ben & Jerry’s on West Fifth Street. You can’t beat the flavors or consistency, and the profits go to Lifeworks.
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