Colorful umbrellas and a whimsical storefront mural adorn Lill Dipper Ice Cream Shop in Bailey Park. Warm smiling employees greet guests who are ready to fix their sweet tooth’s with a swirl of ice cream and tons of fun toppings.
Lill Dipper Ice Cream is a window service ice cream shop located at 308 North Patterson Ave near Bailey Park. The shop serves on flavor, vanilla, and offers 20 different toppings and 15 different dippings including standard toppings and dips such as nuts, sprinkles, chocolate dips and strawberry dips, as well as more exotic add ons such as matcha green tea dips and tortilla chips toppings. Kaitlyn Kirby, a 22-year-old regular customer of Lill Dipper and downtown resident describes the shop as “Instagramable,” stating, “the ice cream tastes good and it’s aesthetically pleasing. Everytime I come, I take a picture and post it somewhere.”
When Lill Dipper opened on May 23, 2019 the goal for co-owners Joseph Bradford, who is also the owner of Tin Can Bottle Shop and John Bryan, who is also the co-owner of Krankies, was to bring back the iconic American soft serve.
“We take pride in where our ingredients come from since they are the star of the show. We make our soft serve liquid in house, we import our chocolate, and our fruit is organic. We want to hone in on the soft serve everyone knows and loves, but elevate it,” explained Bradford.
Lill Dipper is a business with seasonal hours. The winter hours were Monday-Friday, 4-9pm and Saturday and Sunday 12pm-9pm. Part of that comes from the absence of indoor seating available to customers.
“We like what our walk-up store does,” Bradford said. “It allows for people to walk up, get a cone, and enjoy what downtown has to offer without missing a beat, but in order to stay open during the winter months, we had to switch up from soft serve to hot chocolate and belgium waffle sticks, something that we weren’t expecting to do when we first opened.”
Lill Dipper served hot chocolate and waffle sticks starting September 27, 2020. The waffle sticks could be dipped and topped with any of the toppings and warm dips, while the hot chocolate was topped with whipped cream and any of the toppings.
“We added the hot chocolate and waffle sticks to stay open since most people weren’t eating soft serve outside in February”,” Bradford explained.
“Oh, the hot chocolate is some of the best I’ve ever had.” said Tony Jones, a 26-year-old downtown resident. Iit’s so rich and chocolatey, I would drink it on a hot summer day.”
Lill Dippers current hours are Thursday and Friday 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. ; Saturday and Sunday 12 p.m. to 10 p.m.
