Salt & Straw, the fan-favorite ice cream shop from Downtown Disney at the Disneyland Resort, has now opened at Disney Springs. The location, which is the 27th for the ice cream brand, is their second Disney location following an October 2018 opening of their Disneyland Resort location.
Yesterday, BlogMickey.com attended a preview of the store and got a first look at some of the ice cream flavors on offer. Salt & Straw is located next to AMC Theaters in the West Side of Disney Springs and the Orange Garage is the closest parking.
The venue is not a new build, instead trying to fit an entire ice cream operation in a space occupied by Something Silver, a jewelry shop. Salt & Straw got the call from Disney following the bankruptcy of Ample Hills, and owners Kim Malek and Tyler Malek, cousins, jumped at the opportunity to expand their operations to Disney Springs.
On the menu are 12 “classic flavors” – staples that won’t change (much) throughout the year. For guests looking to get in on the craze of limited edition offerings at Walt Disney World, the Salt & Straw business model of offering a rotating menu will be a reason to keep coming back – if the exceptional ice cream wasn’t enough incentive.
The rotating menu will change on the first Friday of each month, and for guests who maybe are hoping for a little more time with their favorite flavor of the month, there will be a couple of flavors that stick around on the “Last Chance Scoops” menu.
Prices range from $6.95 for a single scoop to $14.75 for a flight of four flavors.
During our preview, Salt & Straw put 12 different ice creams in front of us and told a story for each. Actually, storytelling is something that the company prides itself on – even before the Disney partnership came into the picture.
The Willy Wonka in this story is Tyler Malek, the ice cream genius that can talk for hours about the right place to source olives to create the “new vanilla” or explain why it’s important to respect local flavors and tastes like ensuring that their coffee-flavored ice cream here was distinctly Floridian and not based off of what people might like in the Pacific Northwest.
It’s the attention to detail that almost demands that you take your time and learn a little bit before just ordering a Chocolate Gooey Brownie (although it is delicious). Tyler explained that it’s the hope of Salt & Straw that guests come in, take their time, and hear about the inspiration behind each ice cream flavor. There’s even a sign on the wall that says “We highly recommend tasting it all”.
While we could write at length about all we learned from Tyler during the preview event, we’re confident that the staff will be able to teach you a thing or two on your next visit. With that, let’s take a look at some of the ice creams that we sampled.
We started with a lineup from Salt & Straw’s “classics” menu, but make no mistake, we start to learn about attention to detail right off the bat. The Pather Coffee Chocolate Tres Leches is a classic Salt & Straw story. When considering how to best serve a Florida market as an Oregon-based company, local partners were key. Salt & Straw partnered with Panther Coffee to take their cold brew from the Northwest to the Southeast – infusing a classic Miami coffee flavor in their ice cream.
For those who don’t like to stray too far from classic tastes, a delicious Chocolate Gooey Brownie flavor is sure to satisfy.
Continuing the story of leaning into regional and local partnerships, we find ourselves in front of one of the most interesting offerings – The Salty Donut Guava + Cheese. Tyler talked about the learning process of coming into a new market like Central Florida and how
Finally, we have a sampling of the rotating menu. This month, the theme is the student inventor series. The theme was born from the idea that a child’s mind can be an amazingly creative space. Last summer, Salt & Straw partnered with Scholastic for their Rad Readers series and invited kids to submit their wildest stories. They chose the most epic stories submitted by some of the most imaginative children across the nation and turned their whimsical plots into one-of-a-kind ice creams. From a llama astronaut to a Galapagos turtle and three miles of Christmas lights, be sure to ask about the stories that inspired these flavors while working through a sample of each.
In addition to some unique and wonderfully made ice cream, Salt & Straw has some merchandise available in the location.
Salt & Straw is open daily from 10am to close. Don’t want to wait? Order online or pick up a pint to go!
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!