Lady Moo Moo: An ice-cream parlour close to my heart

During the stuffy summer months of the pandemic, Lady Moo Moo in Brooklyn was a lifeline, writes Holly Baxter

What a scoop! Lady Moo Moo in Brooklyn (Alamy )

Ice cream isn’t hard to find in New York City: one of my friends claims she bumps into a celebrity every time she visits Chloe’s Fruit in Union Square, and few people possessed of a sweet tooth will have failed to visit an outpost of Ample Hills Creamery, the 10-store, New York-only phenomenon that makes its produce right here in the state and churns out flavors like marshmallow cornflake and double honeycomb delight. At trendy (*whisper it* overpriced) minimalist clothes store Kith on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn’s bougie Park Slope, you can get a soft-serve out a window mixed with the sugary cereal of your choice (Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Grahams both make for a great choice on a sweaty summer day.)

There is, however, an ice cream spot closer to my heart than any of these.

Further into the neighborhood of Bed-Stuy (short for Bedford-Stuyvesant) than most hipsters dare to tread is a small, lovingly designed wooden walk-up window where homemade ice cream – dairy, vegan, and sorbet, all made on the premises – is sold by a team of dedicated staff. Open April to November, Lady Moo Moo is now in its final week of winter marketing and is selling off pints of its bestsellers to tide people over for the winter.

During the stuffy summer months of the pandemic, Lady Moo Moo was a lifeline. I’d walk down with other people from my apartment building and we’d perch on benches or the edge of fences with $2.50 “child size” scoops definitely big enough for adults, while kids with nowhere else to do during lockdown would play outside. Fairy lights decorated the street outside and the community found a space to be, even during the worst of Covid.

Solving small business problems and personal medical disasters alike using crowdfunding has become commonplace over the past decade

When Hurricane Ida hit during the summer, Lady Moo Moo was flooded and almost all of its equipment destroyed. My neighbor and I pored over Instagram photos of the staff knee-deep in dirty water, the industrial freezers battered and broken, boxes upended and the cutlery destroyed. “Beloved Bed-Stuy ice cream shop lost it all in floods!” proclaimed local blog the BK Reader. The business had only just bounced back from the financial impact of lockdown.

Yet a GoFundMe came to the rescue. The business aimed to raise $10,000 to cover their losses, and ended up getting almost twice as much. The weekend after Ida cleared out, I walked down to the wooden window and enjoyed a homemade strawberry ice cream with an extra scoop of toffee. The only sign that they’d seen hardship was the limit on plastic spoons (no more unlimited tasters per customer.)

Solving small business problems and personal medical disasters alike using crowdfunding has become commonplace over the past decade. The fact that Lady Moo Moo had to resort to doing so is a sad reflection on a country where many multibillion-dollar companies barely pay taxes while small, local spots are forgotten. No one can deny, however, that the community’s immediate response to these people in need was heartwarming. And if you ever find yourself in the vibrant neighborhood of Bed-Stuy (rather than, ahem, the sanitised shores of Williamsburg or, even worse, on the battered pavements of Times Square), you could do worse than visit this institution for a more-than-child’s-size scoop.

Lady Moo Moo: 365 Chauncey Street, Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn