The First Gourmet Ice Cream in New England | New England’s Food Gifts

In 1978, Yankee wrote about a groundbreaking ice-cream shop in Somerville, Massachusetts, now considered by many to be the first gourmet ice cream in New England.

In 1978, Yankee wrote about a groundbreaking ice-cream shop in Somerville, Massachusetts, now considered by many to be the first gourmet ice cream in New England. The owner was Steve Herrell, who had founded Steve’s Ice Cream in 1973, five years before Ben (Cohen) and Jerry (Greenfield) set up shop. Herrell’s genius was to mix his ice cream in a way that incorporated very little air; a gallon of his ice cream was heavier and richer than its commercial counterparts. After selling Steve’s to Joe Crugnale, who went on to also found the Bertucci’s restaurant chain, Herrell opened Herrell’s Ice Cream in Northampton, Massachusetts, where—now semi-retired—he’s still using his original recipes and keeping more than 200 flavors in rotation.  —Amy Traverso

Through the large, frosted storefront window customers’ eyes follow the hypnotic rotation of the White Mountain ice cream freezer on a window ledge. All the ice cream here is made with the one five-gallon ice cream freezer on that window ledge, in front of the world, one batch at a time. Relentless as the tides, 1,200 times an hour, 24 hours a day, the ice cream machine rotates, delivering like a beneficent mother. Once a group arrived after midnight, pleading to be let in. They had driven nonstop from Middlebury, Vermont, because “we had to have Steve’s ice cream.” Employees swear they get calls from airports with people gasping, “I’ve just flown in from Atlanta. Don’t close!” A California man recently wrote: “Your ice cream made my coming to Boston successful. New Englanders can talk about Walden Pond, Arthur Fiedler, and the Red Sox … to me Boston is a mouthful of Steve’s ice cream.”

— Excerpt from “The Best Ice Cream in the World,” by Mel Allen, July 1978

Mel Allen

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