Salt & Straw: Innovative Ice Cream Delights Gotham Taste Buds

Salt & Straw is almost the perfect embodiment of all the irreverent quirk and unique nostalgia of its founding city, Portland, Ore. And while the past decade has shown Stumptowners more than their fair share of tumult and unrest, the beloved ice cream shop is still thriving there and here—so much so, in fact, that it is set to open a third location in New York City.

Cousins Kim and Tyler Malek teamed up to open the first Salt & Straw in 2011 and, with the wind at their back, began expanding nationwide in 2021. New York welcomed its first branch in 2024 at 360 Amsterstam Ave. at West 77th Street on the Upper West Side. A West Village location at 540 Hudson St., at Charles Street, followed.

Instead of waiting patiently for a location to present itself, the Maleks scoured available addresses that could become “part of the fabric of the city.” For their third New York location they targeted the familial Upper East Side. The building it will be housed in—a luxury residential tower by the Naftali group at 255 East 77th and Second Avenue—is still under construction and yet they knew when they happened upon it that it was where they wanted to be.

A long lateral storefront (we joked it’s like a rotated railroad apartment), it will have a lot of sidewalk visibility. Kim has always taken great care choosing the sites for new shops, “not the obvious tourist destinations” that might get more foot traffic, but places that make sense with Salt & Straw’s vibe and customers. They actively customize each location “according to the neighborhood,” incorporating unique designs and “working with different artisans” locally to achieve a true sense of community.

It’s hoped the new store opens in early 2027.

All this growth coincides with the launch of Tyler’s brainchild, the Tacolate (rhymes with chocolate), a riff on the classic ChocoTaco of yore that melted into obsolesence in 2012. A favorite of Kim and Tyler’s, alongside millions of Gen Xers with which they grew up. Reviving the tasty treat had been in the back of Tyler’s mind for a decade, as he tried to innovate and improve upon the original. Even using all the company’s mixers, freezers and cone machines, Tyler wasn’t satisfied. “Tyler went to the ends of the earth to find the equipment,” says Kim, when Taco Bell, of all entities, swooped in with an offer to collaborate.

Initially, partnering with the “Live Más” megachain seemed counterintuitive, but upon further consideration the opportunity presented a plethora of advantages. Plus, the big guys were instrumental in scaling up production. Without them, the Maleks were maxing out creating “a couple hundred a day by hand,” and even that was a massive effort.

Taco Bell’s investment allowed for the purchase of millions of dollars of equipment, including three robots, as well as a real game-changer: their proprietary flavor packets that amp up the end product to the level to which Tyler was aspiring. The new machinery allowed Tyler to achieve a crispier shell (he boasts that is now has an “audible crunch”) that he says is “bigger, better, stronger, and more delicious.”

And living up to the flavor wunderkind’s demands, they updated the taco with creamy cinnamon ancho chili ice cream, real dark chocolate, and puffed quinoa, each accompanied by two of those flavor packets: mango-jalapeño and wildberry cinnamon, if you want to live mucho más. They are available at all Salt & Straw’s scoop shops as well as online.

But while the Tacolate might be the foodie world’s current sweet obsession, their classic scoops haven’t been neglected. Halloween brought back their mania-inducing candycopia, with its hodgepodge of snacky treats tumbled into salted butterscotch ice cream. Thanksgiving options feature this year’s traditional three-course meal: a salted buttercream ice cream tumbled with chunks of Parker House roll, a candied stuffing flavor and even a “main course” scoop integrating turkey sausage bread pudding and cranberry-orange sorbet.

Having covered seasonality, they’re also keeping it local, partnering with Dan Barber of Stone Barns, and his new-ish seed company, Row Seven. They’ve created a Kojinut squash flavor for the debut, with more on the back burner. Certainly by the time the Upper West Side location opens, the explosive creativity of the Maleks and Barber will unveil a bonanza of unique, tantalizing flavors.

Kim is adamant that they’re “not going to be everywhere,” but by the way the first two locations have been embraced, “they’re always looking for other locations.” Success has been sweet for the team, in a textbook win-win phenomenon. “We don’t take that for granted.”