2023 Long Island Ice Cream Tour adds additional date

Founded in 2011, The Long Island Ice Cream Tour first busted out of its all-the-stops-in-one-day format in 2020, when co-founders Jeff Noreman and Derek Steen decided that the itinerary had grown so overstuffed that it had to be split in two.

That was the plan for the 2023 tour, whose first leg, LIICT West, covering ice cream shops west of Northport, took place on July 1. But then Noreman had second thoughts.

“With the number of excellent homemade ice cream places on Long Island, we’ve always had to pick and choose the best places for each of our tours,” he said. “But there were so many wonderful shops that we would’ve missed this year that I felt it was important to find a way to include more of them.”

Thus, what had been a two-legged ice-cream consumption race now has a third leg. 

As originally planned, LIICT East will get underway on Sunday, July 30, starting at Snowflake Ice Cream Shoppe in Riverhead and then proceeding to McNulty's Ice Cream Parlor in Miller Place, Mia's Ice Cream Kitchen in Selden, Strong Island Ice Cream in Nesconset, Ice Cream Social in Commack and, finally, Northport Sweet Shop. The tour starts at 10 a.m. and the last licks finish around 5:30 p.m.

On Sunday, Aug. 13, the brand-new LIICT South tour kicks off at 2 p.m. at Ice Cream Cottage in Mastic and then makes its way to Coyle's Homemade Ice Cream in either Islip or Bay Shore, Old Fashioned Ice Cream Shoppe in West Babylon, Marshall's Ice Cream Bar in Massapequa and, for the big finale, a nighttime showdown between Lido Beach’s Marvel Frozen Dairy and Frozen Cow Ices & Cream.

The past two years of tours attracted close to 100 people for each leg, said Noreman, an information technologist/photographer/videographer from Port Jefferson who now runs the show on his own since Steen moved to Alaska. Tour participants provide their own transportation, pay for their own ice cream and wear custom-printed LIICT 2023 coffee-colored T-shirts so that they can be easily identified (by both scoopers and fellow ’screamers). The shirts are included with online registration ($30 for one tour, $40 for both). Walk-ups who haven’t registered in advance pay the same price but since there may not be a spare shirt in their size, they should wear a coffee-colored top.

The deadline for registration is July 26 for LIICT East, Aug. 10 for LIICT South. Register and find more information at liict.org.