Surely by now you'll recognize a circular logo of an arm holding up an ice cream cone, from pints around the city. Starting their journey in February of this year, Good Behaviour Ice Cream grew rapidly across the city via pop-up locations and selling their flavours in many specialty shops. Quite literally, you could find their custard-based ice cream everywhere.
Now, you won't have to worry about where you'll be getting your ice cream fix from them next, because starting today you'll be able to find owners Michael Lam and Eric Chow with their crew in their permanent space at 342 Westmoreland Street.
The group is launching their soft opening this weekend, from 2 p.m. until 8 p.m., with the eventual grand opening set to take place within the coming weeks.
They're located in The Artisan Factory, in a space previously home to Knockout Ice Cream, which has since moved into the Annex Food Hall. The same building also houses the notorious Famiglia Baldassarre, Dark Horse Espresso Bar, Ace Hill, Gaucho Pie Co., and The Tulip Variety among many other independent businesses.
Previously operating with multiple temporary pop-up shops, this permanent location for Good Behaviour Ice Cream means they'll be reducing their pint availability across the city, so you'll only be able to buy their pints from shops run by the Good Behaviour team. This of course includes their new home and also their pop-up locations at Morellina’s in the Christie Pits area and Egg Bae in Kensington Market.
The decision to reduce their availability comes from the comfortability of not having to worry about where they'll be popping up next, allowing them the time to focus on quality, fine tuning flavours, developing new recipes and providing exceptional service at their personally-operated locations.
"We've been couch surfing forever so now that we have our own space, a place that we can kind of call home it's pretty exciting and almost a bit of relief," says Lam. "Even our customers were like 'oh where are you guys going to be next week' and we were like uh, we don't know yet."
Landing at this location thanks to a close friend who noticed the space's availability, the duo can now utilize it as a production and retail space, allowing them to be more flexible in their offerings throughout the day.
Trying to be strategic in their soft opening, Lam says they're prioritizing understanding the demands of the new neighbourhood they're in, to help them determine the kinds of flavours and products they should offer. Thus, they'll be in a soft opening mode for longer here than at any of their other pop-ups before.
Lam says the response from those in the area prior to them opening their doors has already been pretty positive.
"We've been setting up for about a week and a half now and the amount of people that have come by to say hello and welcome us to the neighbourhood has been overwhelming and even the people in that building have been so nice and so supportive," he says. "It's nice, you actually feel like you're a part of a community."
Taking note of the fact this is an area with many families with young children, they want to be sure that they can meet the demands of the little ones in the community and thoughtfully offer flavours requested by them.
"When we moved into Christie we were unaware of the amount of children that were going to come by and demand chocolate moose tracks, so that was a learning opportunity for us," says Lam. "We're actually putting out a Madagascar vanilla. We've never done a vanilla and this is the first time we're going to do it just simply because there's so many kids that came by."
On top of offering some flavours most requested by their youngest community members, you'll also be able to find up to 16 rotating flavours at a time in the shop, which will of course include favourites like Torta De La Nonna, Hong Kong Milk Tea, Cinnamon Toast Cereal and more. Don't worry, their freshly made doughnut ice cream sandwiches will also be available to order here too.
Remember that Good Behaviour Ice Cream's pop-ups at Morellina's and Egg Bae are only temporary for the warmer months, but you'll always be able to find them at The Artisan Factory from now on.
Good Behaviour Ice Cream will be in soft open mode on Westmoreland Street from Wednesday through Sunday from 2 p.m. until 8 p.m. Be sure to follow them on Instagram for drool-worthy ice cream shots and also be the first to know when their newest Good Behaviour concept is set to launch (hint: it's really soon).
