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Sarah: I fell in love with cooking in college and worked in bakeries, fine dining, and farm to table restaurants after culinary school. I love working creatively and making things with my hands, as well as working as a team, so becoming a pastry chef fulfills me and excites me every day.
Matt: Heap's Ice Cream is our love letter to the power of community gathering around the joy of ice cream. We feature a mix of childhood favorites, like chocolate, cookies & cookie dough, and twofold vanilla, alongside adventurous flavors like our customer favorite mango sticky rice. We make all our own ice cream at a farmhouse creamery in the Hudson Valley, with fresh cream and milk from the cows nearby. We also make the most delicious ice cream sandwiches, with soft cookies from the pastry department at our sister restaurant, Pies 'n' Thighs. We try to celebrate the community at every opportunity, so everyone gets free ice cream on their birthday and any kid who brings in a trophy gets a free cone cone as well. After a year on the corner of 7th Ave and 1st street, this has led Heap’s to really become a place where kids and adults alike can come together over the joy of ice cream.
Sarah: My community is largely former co-workers, bosses, employees, and customers and the ties between us don’t fade as everyone goes on to realize their dreams in different directions. I’m so inspired by their brilliance and grateful that I can text people I haven’t spoken to in years and say I’m stumped by this or that and we’re all on the same team trying to solve pastry/ice cream/restaurant/life problems together.
Matt: The heart of Heap's comes from a family tradition. The name comes from my great-grandmother, known as Grandma Heap, who insisted that every family gathering include shared bowls of ice cream with mounds of whipped cream. She understood something good about ice cream's power to bring people together and create lasting memories around the simplest moments.
Sarah: My all-time favorite is our Cotton Candy, which is thankfully a year round flavor. It has a wonderful toasted sugar flavor and creamy dreamy texture, and the color reminds me of ordering by sight as a kid— it’s a gorgeous sky blue we achieve using spirulina (all our ice creams are naturally colored!). My current seasonal favorite is Marionberry Buckle. It has a swirl of tart jammy Marionberry jam and cakey buckle pieces mixed in it. It tastes so bright and summery— I love it!