The concept, what's new, and a conversation with owner Beckie Jacobs

Image courtesy of Michael Kilfoy/Studio X

What’s sweeter than an Arch-side view of the July 4 fireworks display in St. Louis? For ice cream lovers, it’s the fact that the new Serendipity Homemade Ice Cream shop (4400 Manchester) will open July 6 at 2 p.m., well ahead of its scheduled grand opening on July 17, National Ice Cream Day. On that date, the first 100 purchasers of pints will receive a Serendipity-logoed ice cream dipper. 

"I really wanted to be fully up to speed by National Ice Cream Day, instead of opening the doors then and hoping for the best,” owner Beckie Jacobs says. “Plus, we softly opened the Webster [Groves] store on almost this exact same date 19 years ago, but this time we’re seeing pent-up demand.” 

The 2,000-square-foot shop is located on the ground floor of the Gateway Lofts development, at 4400 Manchester. The mixed-use, 60-unit apartment building is owned by Amy and Amrit Gill of Restoration St. Louis. Almost half the space is dedicated to the production of ice cream and re-establishing Serendipity’s wholesale business, which was on a growth path prior to the pandemic. Jacobs announced the new location in September 2021 and closed the 18-year-old flagship store in Webster Groves in December.

Over the years, Serendipity became known for its variety of homemade ice cream flavors scooped into cake cones, sugar cones, freshly baked waffle cones, and waffle bowls, as well as the requisite sundaes, shakes, malts, and floats. More esoteric offerings include bite-size bon bons, “spirited” (boozy) shakes, and ice cream novelties, such as Waffle Nachos, Dipstix (a homemade Drumstick of sorts with a chocolate treat at the bottom of the cone), and Dipity Dough (a create-your-own ice cream sandwich cradled by a cookie, brownie, or, on occasion, a glazed donut split in half).

Jacobs was an early supporter of National Ice Cream for Breakfast Day, often creating breakfast-themed flavors—Maple Bacon Crunch, Saturday Morning Cartoons, and French Toast Crunch, for example—for the occasion. Other promotions include a Pint of the Month club, a value-added punch card, and Neo-of-the-Month ice cream—a three-flavor combo chosen by customers, which began with Luck of the Irish (Baileys, Guinness, and Jameson flavored ice cream).

In 2016, Serendipity acquired the Fire & Ice Cream food truck, a vintage 1946 Ford fire truck, which can be rented for private, corporate, and personal events. Jacobs named it Ruthie, after her mother, who passed away just before she purchased it. 

Jacobs was and continues to be active in the community, having organized fundraisers for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri, Pedal the Cause, and Gateway to Hope.

Expanded concept, new shop, new logo

The Grove location and larger footprint will allow Serendipity to continue on its growth path. To better fit the demographic, Jacobs is introducing expanded hours including a "coffee-to-cocktails" program, in which coffee and light pastries transitions into affogatos, coffee floats (coffee over a bon bon), and more spirited shakes, as well as standard cocktails, and draft beer. Inaugural hours are 2 p.m.– 9 p.m. through July 17 and will expand after that. 

Serendipity’s pastries (muffins, croissants, cookies, etc.), as well as savories (such as quiche) will initially be baked in house and eventually be scratch-made on premise. Kaldi’s will provide the coffee.

Bagel Factory will supply the bagels (“the best in town,” according to Jacobs), which means morning bagels and lox and cream cheese but no bagel sandwiches. “Bagel Factory’s bagels do not lend themselves to sandwiches—they’re too dense,” explains Jacobs.

Specialty items include poffertjes (aka "poffers"), Dutch mini-pancakes that can be topped with ice cream, fruit, whipped cream, or all three. 

The main attraction, of course, will continue to be Serendipity’s homemade ice cream. Top sellers (besides vanilla) include Salty Caramel Swirl, Cookie Monster, and Gold Coast Chocolate. House favorites include What The Fudge (salted caramel ice cream with a fudge swirl, coarse sea salt, and salted almonds) and Chocolate Malt Crunch (“which tastes like a chocolate malt with added crunchies,” Jacobs says). In development are a toasted coconut lime flavor and a reimagination of Serendipity’s popular gooey butter cake ice cream.

In-house service items will include reusable glass bowls, boats, and silverware.

Drone photo and image courtesy of Michael Kilfoy/Studio X

The exterior sign boasts white lettering, backlit with magenta, matching the logo. The shops offerings are noted in graphics in the transom windows. Inside, the space seats 20, with six at the herringbone-wood and granite-topped bar and two at the ADA-height bar. Above the bar are pendant lights resembling giant Hershey’s kisses.

The focal design element is a honeycomb tile wall that runs the length of the shotgun space. The transition from white to gold hex tile loosely signifies the evolution from day to night. In Jacobs’ words, it represents “shifting from a kitchen, ice creamy vibe in the morning to cocktails-in-the-evening cool.”

At the far end of the space is an eye-catching draft tap for root beer and two craft beers, “one we can make a float out of and one you wouldn’t expect us to make a float out of,” Jacobs quips. Liquor bottles are cleverly concealed behind a sliding wooden panel, fitted with barn door hardware.

Beyond that is a freezer case for pint ice cream sales. “The extra kitchen space allows us to expand both wholesale tub and pint production,” Jacobs says, “so that pint shipping will soon be possible.”

Justin Lauman, former chef at Persimmon Woods, heads up production, which has the capacity to triple its former volume. Helping spearhead the pastry and savory end of the business is consultant Kyle Patterson, chef at the former Lucas Park Grill, Blue Water Grill, and Saint Louis Art Museum Café. A staffer will be assigned to handle the catering side of the business, with Jacobs focusing on sales to restaurants, hotels, country clubs, and theaters.

A Conversation With Owner Beckie Jacobs

What did you do prior to getting into the ice cream business? I worked for eight years at my husband Mitch’s law practice as the office manager/bookkeeper. I was the mother of two young kids at the time, so doing that gave me the flexibility to both work and keep an eye on them. Eventually, I got the itch to do something on my own.

So why ice cream and not some other food concept? People think it was because I have this deep-seeded love for ice cream—and I love it, don’t get me wrong—but at the time there was only one other local company making and selling ice cream wholesale and no one doing it in a dip shop capacity, so I saw an opportunity.

How did the process start? It was the summer of 2002. I decided to take some classes at Forest Park Community College—equipment, fixtures, and culinary classes; pastry and baking classes; cost accounting for restaurants—all of which is valuable but did not directly address ice cream. So I attended my first ice cream convention, in San Diego, which I called ice cream camp, with conferences, seminars, a trade floor—you could learn a lot in a week. It was there that I learned that all the great ice cream shop owners love kids. You have to love kids—and love working with teenagers—which I always have. I like knowing what they know. It keeps you young. And relevant. To me, it was just as much working with kids and the relationships built in the community as the ice cream. I learned small-batch ice cream–making later, some of them at extension classes at the University of Wisconsin. We were taught the basics, advanced techniques, flavoring, marketing, who the customer is…everything you need to know to run an ice cream shop. At that point, I decided I would have better control, as well as provide unique, make-on-the-fly products myself rather than buying what somebody else was making.

And there was a market for signature, one-off ice cream products? There was. A chef says he wants such-and-such flavored ice cream, and you’re a hero if you can do that. Early on, I was asked if I could make lemongrass ice cream. I said sure, even though at the time, I didn’t even know what lemongrass was. I remember buying some and thinking, How the heck do you make ice cream out of this? I figured it out—I ended up running it through a juicer—and in 24 hours, the guy was serving lemongrass ice cream, and he continued to serve what became his own custom flavor.

So when did you decide to open the shop in Webster Groves? Early on, I learned that it was best not to be on the busy four-lane roads, so I envisioned having shops in small, walkable neighborhoods all across the state. So when an 1,100-square-foot space in Webster Groves divinely, serendipitously appeared, that was it.

I’m guessing that’s where the Serendipity name came from. [Laughs.] That would have been a better story. The truth is, I was at a shiva one night and saw the word ‘serendipity’ on a paper cup, and the word ‘dip’ was highlighted. For whatever reason, the name resonated.

Talk about the wholesale part of your business. Wholesale had surpassed retail before I was forced to close it down in 2018, due to changes in federal food laws. In 2019, the local health inspector told us, ‘That wasn’t intended for you. [It’s OK to] go back to what you were doing.’ I was ramping up to do just that, then [the pandemic] hit.

How did you end up in The Grove? First, The Grove is an awesome place. Second, Amy and Amrit [Gill] made me a deal I couldn’t refuse—Amy even designed the space.

Describe the concept and how it differs from what you did in Webster. We’re going from having an awesome retail shop and wholesale ice cream operation to being a ‘coffee-to-cocktails’ ice cream shop, which was partly a result of the pandemic. The quarantining caused a restructuring of office hours, so people began drinking alcohol at all hours of the day. My idea was to capitalize on that phenomenon by offering everything from alcoholic coffee drinks to beer floats and cocktails, whenever people want to drink them.

Talk about acquiring a liquor license, which has become a time-consuming exercise. In the city, what used to take a month or two has become a five to six-month process. It’s unfortunate, especially since it’s such a profitable part of foodservice business.

What makes your ice cream stand out? The biggest difference is that we make sure the ingredients are stabilized and ready to be used in a frozen environment. Ice cream has to stay frozen and alcohol doesn’t freeze well, for example, which is why we promote our spirited shakes. We use low-melt chocolate in our ice cream that’s meant specifically for ice cream. If we used high-melt, Toll House–type chips, they’d stay hard as rocks because they’re meant to be baked, not frozen. 

Are you a member of any trade associations? I learned a lot of what I know from the North American Ice Cream Association, an organization that provides expertise and education that is now based in St. Louis. Executive director Steve Christensen also owns a local company called Scoop School, which teaches ice cream people—and potential ice cream people—how to grow or open an ice cream business. Most St. Louisans have never heard of either one of them.

Mahe is St. Louis Magazine's dining editor. Like this story? Want to share other feedback? Send Mahe an email at gmahe@stlmag.com.

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