Barney’s Plant-based and Traditional Ice Cream
On a sunny afternoon at Barney’s Ice Cream, people sit celebrating the long-awaited arrival of summer. They lean in to chat or steal a bite from a loved one’s bowl. Lips seal around spoons and eyes press closed with pleasure as they enjoy chewy chunks of homemade brownie, complemented by the perfect touch of salt. Their eyes brighten as they take in the organic spearmint in the mint fudge chunk, refreshing and pure.
“People are always happy when they come to get ice cream,” says Chris Cardo, owner of Barney’s on Buffalo’s Elmwood Avenue. They’re even happier to have the choice of plant-based or traditional dairy-based ice cream. Their joy shows as they consider the flavor selection, which includes classics like strawberry and dark vanilla bean and indulgences like salted dark chocolate brownie and birthday cake.
And most of all, they’re happy about the taste.
The shop’s bright, modern and friendly ambiance is a reflection of both the delight and nostalgia that naturally accompanies eating ice cream, as well as Barney’s forward-thinking approach. “We’re really excited to change people’s minds about ice cream a little bit,” says Cardo. “Sometimes you think there’s a compromise, not just with ice cream but with anything, when it comes to being gluten-free or vegan. But I hope we can encourage people to eat our plant-based ice cream and not feel like they’re missing anything.”
He continues, “My wife and I are always in the kitchen playing around with things, trying to achieve the best consistency or texture using healthy ingredients.”
The business’s dedication to quality can be traced to the sourcing of simple, high-quality ingredients. They get their milk and cream for their dairy-based ice cream through Upstate Farms, a cooperative comprised of New York State farmers. For their vegan ice cream, they start with USDA-certified organic cashews.
Then, they make their own ice cream bases, which itself is rare; most ice cream makers buy their base mix from a dairy, like Upstate, before adding in flavors or inclusions. Buying the base saves businesses time and work, shaving off a day from the ice cream making process. However, it’s also a relinquishing of control. “Those bases have milk and cream, of course, but they can also have a lot of other weird ingredients,” Cardo explains, referring to emulsifiers and stabilizers that are used as shortcuts to improving texture or extending shelf life. A short, clean ingredient list like Barney’s features is both more expensive and sometimes more challenging when it comes to nailing the flavor, texture and science of ice cream. But for Cardo, there was no other choice. “We want to control the whole process—and most importantly the ingredients. We make our bases without things like high fructose corn syrup and with the fewest high-quality ingredients possible.”
At Barney’s, where Cardo is business owner as well as head recipe developer and ice cream maker, they make not just one base but two. For the vegan base, they sprout the cashews, a two- or three-day process, before making their own cashew milk. Then, it chills overnight at 35 degrees, before being churned the next day. After that, the ice cream heads into a blast freezer, where it hardens at -40 degrees for 24 hours.
The process of making the dairy base is similarly straightforward: Chris heats the milk, cream and sugar before churning in base ingredients like peanut butter for their peanut butter cookie dough ice cream. It goes through a similar cooling and hardening process before he folds in final touches, like brownie or cookie pieces, all of which happen to be gluten-free. “We make really good gluten-free cookies and brownies,” he notes, “so why not just offer that, so anyone can enjoy it?”
The finished ice cream is stored in a walk-in freezer, where it’s kept at 9 or 10 degrees until it’s ready to be used, which at the current rate is pretty immediate. It’s this same temperature in the shop’s dipping cabinets, creating perfectly scoopable ice cream that makes customers—and employees’ forearms—happy.
They’re presently making eight to ten 24-quart batches a day, with hopes of doubling the batch size soon. Cardo has been making ice cream on a small commercial machine at home for about three years now. To get here has been a labor of love, with a lot of trial and error along the way. “Scaling is a really big challenge,” he says. “When we went from making one-quart batches to 24-quart ones, we had to rethink our recipes completely. They weren’t just small tweaks—we had to make huge changes.”
Cardo, who’s in his early 30s, is adaptable and determined by nature. His dad is a business owner while his mom is a high school culinary arts teacher. Although he graduated from SUNY Fredonia with a degree in business administration, he says, “I really believe the best education comes from getting into things and learning the ropes yourself.”
After college, he and his wife, Katie, moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, where they owned and operated a limo company for seven years. However, they missed their friends and family in Western New York, and a few years ago, sold the company and moved back.
Since returning, they’ve lived their dual passions for healthy food and independent, community-centered business. They own and operate Boxcar Barney’s Ice Cream, a seasonal shop in Mayville, on Chautauqua Lake, and the Upper Crust Bakehouse in Fredonia. These businesses, like Barney’s, offer an array of options to accommodate special diets, such as gluten-free and vegan.
Hand-in-hand with their commitment to quality are their values, which center around having a positive impact on customers, the community and the planet. As a small company, they source many of their ingredients, like cocoa nibs and chocolate, from Wilderness Poets, a plant-based company out of Ashland, Oregon. In the shop, for those who don’t choose to get their ice cream in a homemade gluten-free cone, dishes and spoons are compostable.
Cardo is also determined to give back to the Buffalo community as much as possible. They are beginning by partnering with Feed Buffalo, a food bank based out of the west side that focuses on organic, whole foods for people with halal and vegan diets. “Our goal is just to donate as much as we can to them,” he says. “It’ll be modest here in the beginning but as we grow, we hope to grow our impact.”
Looking to the near future, Barney’s plans to release a few plant-based flavors made with an oat milk base. Cardo is also excited to introduce new flavors, perhaps a peach lavender this summer and a chai ice cream in the fall. He’s also, of course, going to keep experimenting, hoping to one day offer a line sweetened without refined sugar, using coconut palm sugar, dates and maple syrup instead. Very soon, Cardo hopes to be able to offer pints to go from the store, as well as at a handful of local grocers.
As for more distant plans, they’d love to add more locations around the area. Cardo adds excitedly, “I’d like to eventually make our own sprinkles.” And while this might seem like a level of detail and care that’s insignificant for some, for Barney’s, it’s right on brand.
