Your First Look Inside The Flagship Museum Of Ice Cream In New York City
The Museum of Ice Cream began as a pop-up concept in 2016 and is now opening a massive flagship location in the city where it all began: New York. The 25,000-square-foot building features 13 all-new multi-sensory installations including a "celestial subway," "queen bee hive," three-story spiral slide and colossal sprinkle-filled pool with about 100 million rubber rainbow pieces. For a sneak peak inside, follow us.
Your ice cream name
Before you enter the first installation, you have to come up with your ice cream name. For inspiration, check the star-studded plaques on the wall: Demi Gelato, Melon DeGeneres, Alexander McCream, Cake Gyllenhaal and more.
The lounge
The first installation is a lounge area featuring a pretty pink bar serving vanilla milkshakes topped with whipped cream and a cherry. An energetic singer, clad head to toe in showy ice cream apparel, might invite you on stage for a frozen dessert-inspired duet.
Celebration room
Are you celebrating something? If not, you are now. The super-long table in this smokey room is blanketed with faux goodies and real cake pops.
Celestial Subway
Instead of taking you through smelly gray tunnels underground, this dreamy subway transports you to futuristic New York City-inspired spots like Skybeca. If only all trains were this clean.
Sky room
When you get off at your subway stop, you'll enter a mirrored room with tiny red seats. Lights then project partially cloudy bright blue skies all around you.
Banana room
This installation has pink and yellow bananas hanging from the ceiling.
Sprinkle room
This little hut is easier to get into if you're a small child, but in the off chance you're not, you'll have to crawl. Inside, the walls are covered with rainbow sprinkles.
Bouncy house
Next door to the sprinkle room, there's another miniature installation. It's a bright pink bouncy house.
Stretch room
If you're wondering why the employees are stretching in this room, it's not because they're about to work out (that we know of). It's on-theme with the ice cream sample you're about to get. It's called booza and it's made with mastic (or tree sap), giving it a super cool mouthfeel.
Piano room
This room is available to all museum guests, but if you want to have a private event here you can rent it for an hour with up to 40 people for $5,000. There is piano art on the wall and cool pink turntables for you to play DJ.
Slide
Walk down a kaleidoscope hall to the top of the three-story swirly slide. You can go down without or without a sack, but with will speed up the ride.
Melting cave
The bottom of the slide brings you to a forest of columns that look like they're dripping ice cream. Follow the glowing light to the back of the room for soft serve in a cone.
Beehive
This bright yellow exhibit features a queen bee with an ice cream pint on her royal staff. Sit in the winged chairs or lick honey ice cream from a baby cone.
Playground
This multicolor room is full of playground essentials: a swingset, monkey bars, basketball hoops and teeter totters. There's also a bowl of pink plastic balls and rubber ice cream cones.
Sprinkle pool
The sprinkle pool is the most iconic part of the Museum of Ice Cream — and this time, it's accompanied by an adults-only jacuzzi. There are nearly 100 million biodegradable rubber pieces in this room — the last installation on the tour. If you're still hankering for sweet stuff, grab a pint at the gift shop on your way out or head to the best ice cream stand in your state.
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