Amy's Ice Creams

Amy's Ice Creams is a privately owned chain of ice cream shops in Texas with headquarters in Austin. The Austin Chronicle described Amy's as a "quintessentially Austin institution" which "dominates the local ice cream scene." Amy's ice cream is owned by Amy Simmons. The readers of the Austin Chronicle have voted Amy's the best Reader's Ice Cream 8 years in a row.

Known colloquially as Amy's, Amy's Ice Creams was started by Amy Simmons in 1984. While in Boston, as a premedical major at Tufts University, Amy worked for Steve's Ice Cream. After Steve's Ice Cream was purchased by a larger corporation, Amy decided to go into business for herself. Amy and her business partner Scott Shaw eventually decided to open their ice cream shop in Austin. They wrote a hot check for the lease of their first store on Guadalupe Street in Austin. Amy has since opened thirteen more locations, with the majority of them in Austin, one in Houston, and one in San Antonio.

In 2009, owner Amy Simmons stated that she does not intend to rapidly expand the chain.

Amy's offers over 300 flavors of ice cream and fruit ices, a non-dairy alternative similar to sorbet. Of this large number of flavors, only a small portion are available at a particular store at any given time. Amy's ice cream production facility located in Austin makes all the flavors each month for Amy's shops.

Every Amy's location always offers seven flavors, known as standards, sold in three sizes. Amy's offers sugar and cake cones for free; waffle cones cost extra but can accommodate any size of ice cream. For the larger two sizes of ice cream, the company's version of mix-ins called "Crush'ns" can be added.

Unlike some ice cream stores, such as Cold Stone Creamery or Marble Slab, Amy's does not use a cold stone for a mixing board. Like Steve's Ice Cream, the boards are room temperature and, per company claims, bring out the flavors in the different ice creams during the mixing process due to warming up the ice cream.

...
Wikipedia