A Tampa Bay-based ice cream shop has opened its doors on South Florida Avenue, hoping to bring a ray of sunshine to Lakeland’s historic Dixieland.
Bright Ice Scoop Shop celebrated its grand opening March 29 at 1200 S. Florida Ave., the longtime former home of Petals Flower Shoppe. The building has been vacant since the florist shop closed in 2009 and is now filled with light bright colors, serving up ice cream and coffee.
“It was our biggest opening day of any of our shops,” Bright Ice co-owner Steven Garrahan said. “The customers are so nice, friendly and outgoing.”
Garrahan and his business partner, co-owner Kurt Drake, came up with Bright Ice Scoop Shop when they wanted to become food entrepreneurs. Garrahan’s background is an electrical engineer, and Drake worked in construction management.
“We wanted to do something a little different,” Garrahan said.
So they came up with the concept of Bright Ice Scoop Shop, fueled by Drake’s experiments in the kitchen and Garrahan’s love of ice cream. It launched its first St. Petersburg location in November 2019.
“It came down to Kurt was making a test batch of ice cream and then we went out and got ice cream to-go from our local competitors,” Garrahan said. “I did a blind taste test. In our blind taste test I chose our flavors over the competitors every time. That’s how I knew it was good.”
What sets Bright Ice’s ice cream apart from the others is it’s made with fresh, often local ingredients. The cream is provided by a St. Petersburg dairy distributor, Garrahan said, produced by Florida cows. Several flavors feature Florida agricultural ingredients, including oranges and key limes.
“I’ve had customers question our strawberry because it’s not pink enough, because we don’t dye it,” he said laughing. “That’s what strawberry looks like when it’s been mixed with milk.”
Garrahan said the company’s signature roasted strawberry with brown sugar and balsamic starts as a whole sheet tray pan full of strawberries packed with brown sugar, sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest and balsamic vinegar that’s put in the oven to roast for 45 minutes. It’s then left to cool before being churned with cream.
This results in a pale pink ice cream that’s creamy and sweet with a savory note.
“I’ve contemplated taking the name balsamic out of the name because a lot of people don’t want to try it,” Garrahan said. “They think it will taste like a fruit salad.”
Despite COVID, the ice cream shop quickly expanded to include locations in Tampa, Pinellas Park and Venice. Garrahan said after opening a shop in Venice, they knew they wanted to continue expanding Bright Ice toward the eastern part of Florida and quickly focused on Lakeland.
“The first time I drove down South Florida Avenue, I thought, ‘This is it,'” Garrahan said. “It’s very local, family oriented and fun.”
The ice cream shop has three full-time employees who work in a St. Petersburg kitchen making its ice cream flavors by hand. It’s then shipped to Lakeland, where it’s scooped up. Among the most popular flavors are cookies and cream, espresso with Kahlua, and the marshmallow, cookies and caramel.
Among its more unique flavors, Garrahan said, is the lemon with crystalized ginger, which includes pieces of ginger snap cookies in it.
Bright Ice will offer special limited time flavors as well as seasonal offerings. Garrahan said a crowd favorite that will come back this summer is “Alligator Tracks,” a localized play on popular moose tracks that starts off with a sea salt caramel base, adds in chocolate-covered orange and coconut clusters broken into chunks, pretzels and chopped up fresh pistachios.
“It sounds a little odd, but it’s interesting,” he said. “We ran out of it so fast last summer.”
Customers can also offer of a select coffee menu that includes affogato, which combines espresso with ice cream.
Bright Ice is open seven days a week, from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., except on holidays, Garrahan said. Customers are invited to eat inside, take a seat on the shaded porch overlooking Florida Avenue, or there’s pre-packed pints for easy take out.