We all scream: Open just over a month, Little Man Ice Cream — the giant silver milk can with a patio attached at 2620 16th Street (right by Lola) — is already a neighborhood landmark. Inspiration for the place came from owner Paul Tamburello's own past: a grandfather who owned an ice cream store in Chicago in the 1930s. Little Man did a booming business in Denver's wicked heat, serving up handmade ice cream in homemade waffle cones, hand-mixed sodas, ice cream bars and sandwiches, root beer floats — the works. But the place doesn't plan to shut down when this broiling summer gives way to winter's chill. Instead, with the snow will come a menu shift and the addition of hot soups, chili, fresh-baked bread and hot chocolate.
I recently talked to Nik Isaac, "a humble employee" at Little Man, and he told me that while the joint has been jumping almost every night this summer, with crowds "packed to the sidewalk," there'd always been a plan to keep the registers ringing year-round. "Winters in Denver kinda suck, you know?" he said, so Little Man wants to be there for the snow-bound neighbors, switching on the soup kettles when the ice cream machines go quiet and adding a bank of patio heaters to keep everyone toasty.
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Just a couple of blocks away is another new attraction: Red Trolley Coffee, Cake and Cone, at 2639 West 32nd Avenue. Open almost three months, Red Trolley is in a very cool old building — with wood like a church and a vibe like a longtime neighborhood hangout — with a killer location (smack in the middle of the panadería/taquería stretch of West 32nd, across the street from Taquería Patzcuaro).
Towards the end of the heat wave, I stopped by Red Trolley looking for a chocolate-covered sea salt and caramel gelato concoction that I'd been told by a trusted source was the kind of thing men kill for. He'd almost drool when he spoke of it and make unattractive guttural noises rarely heard outside of a zoo or inpatient mental facility. When ice cream affects a man that deeply, I gotta try it, I thought. Unfortunately, because Red Trolley makes everything fresh every day (waffle cones, ice cream, even the marshmallow for the rocky road), it doesn't offer every flavor every day, and didn't have the one I was looking for.
But it did have Vietnamese cinnamon ice cream, which was awesome — powerfully flavored and served in a soft, almost cakey waffle cone fresh from the iron. There was also a tub of chocolate that looked more like the icing you see on top of a German chocolate cake — all glossy and dense — and about a dozen more flavors that ran the gamut from ordinary (vanilla gelato) to extraordinary (caramel ice cream, laced with caramel and topped with little shattered pieces of caramel — my substitute for the chocolate salted caramel the house didn't have). But no ice cream with gummy bears or crushed candy bars. The folks at Red Trolley are serious about their "everything made in-house" mantra, so if you're looking for that kiddie crap, go to Cold Stone, sucker.
Meanwhile, I'll be in Highland, waddling fatly and happily between the town's newest grown-up ice cream shops.
Leftovers: It's lights out for Moon Time, at 846 Broadway, as well as La Praviana, farther down the street at 2231 South Broadway. But it looks like Blake Street Vault could be opening any day at 1526 Blake Street, in a LoDo block that's turning into a real restaurant row.
