All About Bright Ice in Downtown Wellen

In honor of Bright Ice’s official opening, we spoke with Kurt Drake, one of the founders of this all-new ice cream shop, to give you a peek into the concept, design approach, and natural flavors.

[Wellen Park]: What’s the concept behind Bright Ice? What makes it different from other ice cream shops?

[Kurt]: First, we try to make all of our ice cream as natural as possible. For example, there are 7.5 lbs of ripened bananas in every tub of our Caramelized Bananas with Peanut Butter and Honey, 4.5 lbs of strawberries in our Strawberry with Brown Sugar and Balsamic, and 2.5 lbs of blueberries in our Blueberries with Cinnamon. We use only 100% real lemon juice and key lime juice for our Key Lime Pie and Lemon with Crystallized Ginger.  

We don’t use concentrates, syrups, or artificial flavorings. We like our flavors to be bold, build on the palate, and celebrate the Florida lifestyle. 

Our most recent addition to our permanent menu is Orange Kissed Coconut Cake. It has a light, bright, citrusy flavor that embraces the happy vibe of our sunshine state. We have three full-time ice cream makers who spend their days roasting, baking, and cooking every component used to create our ice cream. They bake the blondies that go into our Sprinkles and Cream, cook and preserve the jam that goes into our Vegan Peanut Butter with Homemade Strawberry Jam, and make caramel from scratch for our Sea Salt Caramel.   

We like to think that this level of detail helps set us apart. We keep our scoops on the larger size and our prices below our competitors. We also try to introduce new, limited-time flavors every 6-8 weeks to give our customers something new to look forward to.   

[Wellen Park]: What was the inspiration or design approach behind the shop?

[Kurt]: We are first and foremost a Florida brand and want our shops to represent what it feels like to live in our great state. Our aesthetic is bright, modern, and textural, with a slight nod to Florida’s mid-century boom years. 

 For the Wellen Park location, we also wanted to layer in a Venice beach feel by using weathered wood paneling, a one-of-a-kind striped, concrete floor that looks like sand, and a custom 32′ wall mural created specifically for this location. We put a lot of time and thought into every finish and piece of furniture.  

Our shops don’t look like a traditional ice cream parlor. We want them to feel upscale, inviting, and fun. 

[Wellen Park]: What excites you most about expanding into Wellen Park?

[Kurt]: In our eyes, Wellen Park is the new gold standard for future development in Southwest Florida.  The Wellen Park team has truly thought about how people live, work, and socialize in Florida. They typically aren’t playing a game of tennis in 92-degree weather, but they are taking an evening stroll around the lake, riding their bikes to the grocery store, or meeting up with family and friends for dinner, a concert, or movie night. It’s one of the few communities in Florida where you don’t have to get in a car to enjoy all the amenities. We love that we’re able to be part of that vision.

[Wellen Park]: Tell us about all of these exciting flavors! Do you have flavors that always stay on the menu?

[Kurt]: We have 17 “always flavors” and three non-dairy, oat milk-based flavors that are always on the menu. Typically we rotate 2 to 3 limited-time flavors every 6-8 weeks and scoop until they’re gone.   

Strawberry Pretzel Pie and Peach Crisp will return in a few weeks. They’re amazing flavors and we only bring them out once a year. If you’re a chocolate lover, try our Deepest Darkest Chocolate Secret — I won’t tell you the secret, but it does have four different types of chocolate.

If you’re a coffee lover we have Coffee Toffee, with a delicious milk chocolate base and homemade toffee pieces. If you’re feeling a little fruity, our Pineapple with Brown Butter and Pecans will hit the spot. We limit the number of flavors we produce so we can better focus on the quality of each one.   

[Wellen Park]: Any other details you would like to include? 

[Kurt]: If ice cream is not your jam, we have a great coffee menu featuring lattes, cappuccinos, and several specialty drinks, hot or iced. You can also add a shot of espresso to any milkshake and enjoy one of our homemade dessert bars or ice cream sandwiches.

 

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Header image courtesy of @kayteegregory.