The Museum Of Ice Cream Offers A Lot Of Sugary Instagramable Shots, But Not Much Substance
by Heather Cassell
I don’t know what I really expected out of a museum about ice cream.
If I was more imaginative like my friend, Girl Roamer Emily, I would have dressed more appropriately for our day at the Museum of Ice Cream. Camped it up a bit. Dressed the part in outrageously girlish pink.
It just might have put me in a different mindset. One that didn’t expect much more than a fun late morning outing with my friends at the most popular museum that is not really a museum, but an Instagram playground.
Novelty
It was a novelty when I bought the tickets after my niece alerted me that a new round of sales was about to open last fall.
Tickets to the museum have been hot, selling out in minutes if not seconds. Ticket sales haven’t slowed down since the museum opened in San Francisco nearly a year ago. The founders simply continue to extend its stay on Grant Avenue in the heart of Union Square. It’s most recent round of timed ticket sales open September 8.
The museum came to San Francisco after a hugely successful star-studded run in Los Angeles in 2017 and causing a sensation in New York, where it first launched in 2016.
The museum, founded by Laguna Beach, California native and Parsons alumna Maryellis Bunn and Lightbox CEO Manish Vora, who formerly worked on Wall Street, isn’t loved by everyone. San Franciscans have protested the uber popular sprinkles pool. Even though there’s an air shower to remove the sprinkles after rolling around in the pool for our allotted four minutes, I still ended up unknowingly taking some home with me and probably trekking some out onto the street to my fellow San Franciscans ire. I have no idea what the sprinkles are made of, but they have been causing an environmental concern.
That sticky issue aside…
A Little Bit About Ice Cream
First, you are welcomed in a small group where you announce your favorite ice cream and pick your ice cream name. I forgot mine.
Upon entering the museum there is a brief history of ice cream written on the wall. That’s about as museum as it gets. Here museum-goers learn a number of things. Ice cream’s origins trace back to 618 AD to the Chinese Tang Dynasty. That President George Washington really liked ice cream (he spent $5,000 in today’s money in one summer on the cool desert … it must have been one hot summer!). That the commercialization of ice cream started in 1843 with the invention and patent of Nancy Johnson’s hand-cranked ice cream machine, and the ice cream scoop was created by African American man Alfred Cralle in 1893 (who also received a patent). There is much more in short snippets of key moments in ice cream history leading up to today along the wall, but that was the end of anything informative and interesting about ice cream.
Sugar Coated
Following the brief history lesson, your group is taken to the vault and then everyone is guided into a ring toss room to win discount tickets to go shopping at the gift shop before being let loose to wander through the various rooms, which are simply room after room of Instagramable perfect rooms of odes to everything and anything devoted to ice cream. Although, I couldn’t figure out what cotton candy has to do with ice cream.
There’s the ice cream shop scooping out ice cream and hits from the jukebox with fun platinum albums with takes on artists and song names, such as “California Swirls” by Katy Berry and “Personal Cheesecake” by Depeche A La Mode. There’s the cherry room and candy room filled with larger than life gummy bears, candy wrappers, macaroons, a popup popsicle room, and the banana split room before you’re dumped into the store to buy a multitude of Museum of Ice Cream memories.
In between, you get some scoops of ice cream and cotton candy to enjoy.
My friends and I left with a sugar high and a, “Ugh, that was sort of fun” feeling. We weren’t as impressed, but maybe we were expecting too much because “museum” is attached to what is basically an interactive exhibit or playground.
COOL TO DO:
Museum of Ice Cream, 1 Grant Avenue, San Francisco, California 94108. 855-258-0719. General: or Tickets: . museumoficecream.com.
HOURS: Wednesday – Monday: 10:30 a.m. – 8:30 p.m., Closed Tuesdays
TICKETS: $$$ = $30 – $100
(price of average ticket to enter the event)
TYPE OF EVENT: Interactive Exhibit
RATING: 3 = Aqua
(0 being the worst rating and 5 being the best rating)
VIBE: Casual and fun.
SCENE: Fun at any age but geared toward a youthful hipster crowd. Get into the mood and Instagramable pictures by dressing up. It will make the event a lot more fun and entertaining.
SERVICE: Entertaining and interactive in the beginning and then you’re just another visitor by the end.
NOISE LEVEL: The museum is made for noise, but it wasn’t that noisy. No one was overly loud with their conversations or laughter.
DAZZLE ME AGAIN: The sprinkle pool is the star attraction, but the ice cream parlor was fun with the jukebox, a scoop of ice cream, and the fun take on names on the records.
WHERE TO NEXT?: The pop-up museum is staying in San Francisco, for now.
WORTH THE OUTTING?: Had a good time, but I’ve seen better.
Book your next fun adventure to San Francisco with Girls That Roam Travel. Contact Heather Cassell at Girls That Roam Travel at 415-517-7239 or at .
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