Big Gay Ice Cream Shop Closes East Village Outpost
Pandemic claims dessert spot on East Seventh Street, but other locations staying open
BY TAT BELLAMY-WALKER
New York City’s fi rst “Big
Gay Ice Cream Shop”
has offi cially shuttered
because of the pandemic.
Since opening its doors at 125
East Seventh Street in the East
Village in September of 2011, the
ice cream shop has become a visible
and notable piece of Manhattan’s
LGBTQ business landscape.
However, the store has been experiencing
fi nancial diffi culty and
has been closed since the pandemic
started in March. The owners
announced that this location will
not be reopening this year.
“With great sadness but with
no regrets, Bryan and I decided
that the time came for Big Gay Ice
Cream to close our East Village
location,” Bryan Petroff and Doug
Quint, the shop’s founders, wrote
The original location of the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop has offi cially closed its doors.
in a statement on January 22 to EV
Grieve, a blog covering Manhattan’s
Lower East Side. “We decided
that even if the shop managed to
FACEBOOK/BIG GAY ICE CREAM
make it through ‘the COVID thing’
it would never truly recover.”
They added, “We need to be able
to jam customers in during the
FOOD
summer to make enough money to
get us through the off-season. That
won’t work anymore. Knowing that
the usual fall semester student
rush won’t be coming this year, we
have decided to call it.”
The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop
started as a food truck in 2009
and soon expanded to multiple locations
throughout the city. While
some of the shop’s other locations
remain open, the store at South
Street Seaport is closed.
Even as the pandemic shuts
down many LGBTQ businesses,
the owners are still hopeful and
want to expand.
“We’re going to ‘keep on keeping
on’ at our other locations and hope
to open another East Village or
Lower East Side location before too
long,” the owners wrote in a statement.
“Goodbye East Seventh. So
long and thanks for all the calories.”
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