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Tacoma’s Ice Cream Social has opened its Proctor store

Sue Kidd October 6, 2021

The trifecta for Ice Cream Social is complete. The third store for the ice cream company debuted in Tacoma’s Proctor neighborhood over the weekend. Last year saw a lot of movement for the 9-year-old ice cream company operated by Layla Isaac and Jamie Van De Wege.

The Tacoma company closed its Sixth Avenue location after six years of operation. That location was the company’s first scoop shop. Two years before the Sixth Ave opening, Isaac founded her pop-up ice cream business as a cart at the farmers market. After her Sixth Ave debut, she expanded to Point Ruston in 2017 and that scoop shop continues to operate.

The openings in Tacoma’s Hilltop and Proctor neighborhoods are a sure sign of growth for the Tacoma-based ice cream emporium that is known for its fanciful flavors, vegan sorbets and handmade waffle cones.

Isaac and Van De Wege for years had used a downtown Tacoma commercial kitchen space at Court House Square as her commercial headquarters. “We’ve really outgrown the space. It wasn’t efficiently laid out,” Isaac explained last year after the company announced its plans. “The other space was small and we’d continually add space, but it wasn’t enough.”

Pictured here is Ice Cream Social’s Point Ruston location.

In the Hilltop neighborhood, they found a 2,800 square-feet space that was big enough to host a scoop shop, but also had room for a large commercial kitchen that is now home to the ice cream company’s production. Isaac has been using the space at 1110 Martin Luther King Jr. Way as her commercial headquarters since last year, but she opened the scoop shop space to the public earlier this spring. Opening the Hilltop space to the public was more than two years in the making.

NOW OPEN IN THE PROCTOR NEIGHBORHOOD

While Isaac and Van De Wege struggled with declining clientele in the Sixth Avenue neighborhood – that neighborhood has started to appeal a little more to bar hoppers and less to family destinations like a scoop shop – Proctor’s family-friendly environment was ideal for Ice Cream Social. “My business partner and I felt this would be a good business decision, moving to a more family friendly area,” Isaac said last year.

They took over the former Culpepper Books at 2521 N. Proctor St., adjacent to Europa Bistro.

When it rains desserts, sometimes it pours: Proctor is now home to another ice cream shop. Bliss Small Batch Creamery opened its Proctor store inside Top Pot Doughnuts earlier this year.