The Ice Cream Chick replaces Herrell's Ice Cream in Huntington
Ice cream with rainbow sprinkles at The Ice Cream Chick in Huntington. Credit: Newsday/Erica Marcus
Huntingtonians mourning the loss of Herrell's Ice Cream have reason to rejoice. Less than a month after Herrell's, which opened in 2008, served its last High Definition Vanilla cone, a worthy successor has opened to keep the sweet times going. The Ice Cream Chick is owned by Christine Cairo, and she's descended from Long Island ice cream royalty.
Cairo had worked at Krisch’s in Massapequa from 1998 until two months ago. That parlor, founded in 1955, is owned by her brother and was formerly managed by her husband, Paul Cairo (who, last year, left to open Strong Island Ice Cream in Nesconset).
Cairo said that her brother would have been happy to make the Huntington store a satellite Krisch’s, and her husband offered to share the Strong Island name. "But I wanted my own thing. I have two daughters and I wanted them to know that women can do anything." After a pause she added, "It’s good for my son to know, too."
Cairo has found a different ice cream culture in Huntington than she knew in Massapequa. "They are really into color here," she said, "birthday cake, mint chip. At Krisch’s our number-one flavor was chocolate-chocolate chip." While she uses a different base mix for her version of that ice cream, she makes the chips the Krisch’s way: Instead of preformed chocolate morsels, she uses a big knife to chip shards off a block of Mercken’s dark chocolate.
Some of the more fanciful Ice Cream Chick flavors are Twinkie (made not with actual Twinkies but pieces of pound cake and pools of marshmallow creme) and chocolate mint cream (with green-hued buttercream and crushed Andes Chocolate Mints). The only holdovers from Herrell’s are the beloved chocolate whipped cream and the genuine chocolate (not chocolate-flavored) Guittard sprinkles.
Cairo redecorated the store with lots of black and white and hot pink, stylized flowers and pinup girls. She cleared out Herrell’s tables and will be installing a bank of booths.
One item lifted directly from Krisch’s is the monumental "kitchen sink" sundae containing 10 ice creams, three toppings, two bananas, waffle wedges, whipped cream, sprinkles and cherries. Cairo is in the process of buying the distinctive "sink" containers (complete with taps and a faucet) but, in the meantime, you can get yours in a disposable aluminum pan. It costs $49.99 and if you want to do the "kitchen sink challenge," she’ll set up a table for you and, if you can finish it within one hour, it’s free of charge.
The Ice Cream Chick is at 46L Gerard St., Huntington, 631-673-1100, theicecreamchick.com.
