San Francisco’s irreverent, inclusive and all-around whimsical ice cream outfit is sliding into a space on Abbott Kinney with all the usual fanfare of the Mission District-borne sweets company: surprises, drag queens and free scoops late into the night. We wouldn’t expect anything less from the unapologetic team at Humphry Slocombe, whose unofficial slogan is, well, “Lick That.”
Now up and running in a cheery 1,000-square-foot space, the L.A. area’s first Humphry Slocombe offers 10 to 12 flavors by the scoop at any given time—and more, if you include the pints available for retail—including some of the brand’s most iconically cheeky options, such as Blueberry Boy Bait (blueberry ice cream with brown sugar streusel) and Secret Breakfast (bourbon ice cream with house-made cornflake cookies). This is, after all, the company that churns out flavors like prosciutto and Elvis (The Fat Years), made with banana, bacon and peanut butter.
In the L.A. shop, four to six of the flavors will rotate monthly, so if you’re looking forward to a scoop of Jesus Juice (that’s red wine and Coke) or their collaborative Hawaiian shaved-ice flavor made with Roy Choi, get there soon, as those are both set to swap out in a few weeks.
If you’re simply looking forward to a good time, stop by on Saturday for the grand opening party to catch free scoops—though a $1 suggested donation will help aid The Trevor Project, an organization offering suicide- and crisis-prevention aid to at-risk LGBTQ youth. You can also expect a photo booth, raffle tickets for giveaways (prizes include gift cards, pints, merch and pool floats) plus “fabulous drag queens hanging out with the crowd,” a calling card of a Humphry Slocombe event. Queens are so blessedly engrained in the company, in fact, that L.A.’s location features two massive pieces of art: one depicting manicured drag-queen hands holding a cherry, and in the other, holding melting ice cream.
The opening is the culmination of months of L.A. rollout, which included Roy Choi’s flavor, a Negroni Week collab with Little Dom’s, an appearance at Smorgasburg and retail distribution throughout the city’s Whole Foods stores. The SF scoop operation launched Wednesday in Venice’s fashionable shopping district, which is fast becoming a destination for frozen treats; Humphry Slocombe now shares turf with Wanderlust Creamery, Salt & Straw, the Van Leeuwen ice cream truck and Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, which may just make Venice the ice cream capital of L.A.
Humphry Slocombe is now open at 1653B Abbot Kinney Blvd, from noon to midnight Monday to Friday and 11am to midnight Saturday and Sunday. Stop by Saturday, August 18, for a grand-opening party from 11am to midnight.