Pina colada, Missouri peach: New Kansas City ice cream shop offers seasonal flavors

A professional ice cream machine has been taking up space in Jamie Howard’s living room for two years, taunting her, she says with a laugh.

She has been planning her own shop for longer than that, buying used restaurant equipment as she had the funds. Now the equipment is at her new self-financed High Hopes Ice Cream shop, which opened this past week on Troost Avenue.

“It seemed impossible, so I would whistle Frank Sinatra’s ‘High Hopes.’ Keep your head up, and for the pandemic too, with it ravaging the world,” Howard said.

She previously worked at the popular Betty Rae’s Ice Cream and didn’t want to leave, but at the time the shop was having internal conflicts.

She then became a pastry chef at Stock Hill Kansas City Steakhouse south of the Country Club Plaza. But she was furloughed at the start of the pandemic, when she was eight months pregnant. Then she got a job as a baker at Blackhole Bakery on Troost, near her home.

All the while she was planning her own ice cream shop, buying equipment, and applying for a business loan — but was turned down. So she financed the shop herself.

“Ice cream is really fun to do, an unlimited creative outlet,” Howard said. “I saw some of my flavors (from Betty Rae’s) still posted on social media. I was ready for my own platform.”

High Hopes at 5536 Troost Ave., Unit A, is in her neighborhood and surrounded by other local and women-owned businesses, including Blackhole Bakery and Urban Cafe.

The seasonal flavors will change monthly and use some ingredients from local vendors and farms. Currently flavors include the dairy-free Caught in the Rain pina colada; strawberry birthday cake (with a sauce made from City Barrel Brewery + Kitchen’s beer and swirled into the ice cream); almond butter and Missouri peach (with peaches from Cultivate KC); and mango chamoy (a sauce made from fermented fruit and chiles).

Coming up, a blackberry lemonade sherbet with blackberries from a local farm.

Scoops are $3.75, add $1 for a waffle cone.

Hours: Noon to 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, and noon to 9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. It is closed Sundays and Mondays but plans to add Sunday hours later. Customers currently use a walk-up window.

As staff gears up, Howard will add online ordering, as well as pints and quarts, shakes, floats and sundaes. She also hopes to have benches out front.