Van Leeuwen Ice Cream, the NYC born and nationally beloved brand known for its made-from-scratch dairy and vegan ice creams, will open a scoop shop in Westport on February 6. The launch marks a return to its roots for co-founders Ben and Pete Van Leeuwen who are Fairfield County natives and whose ice cream journey began here twenty years ago.
In celebration, Van Leeuwen Westport will offer $1 scoops on opening day (Feb. 6) from 3pm-5pm and free totes to the first 100 customers beginning at 3pm.
The scoop shop will also showcase a special limited-time offering created by Westport-based cookbook author and creator Julia Dzafic (@lemonstripes). The vegan sundae features scoops of strawberry shortcake ice cream and banana pudding ice cream, and is topped with sprinkles, hot fudge and a “party hat” AKA a sugar cone.
If not for her belief of setting “unrealistic goals,” Sandra Pittman’s namesake restaurant, Sandra’s Next Generation, may not have ever been born in the first place.
Now in over 34 years with no signs of slowing down as evidenced by our Thanksgiving week visit where we witnessed the crew rapidly filling catering orders and making so much cornbread stuffing and baking hundreds of homemade pies it would blow your mind.
And even with an already booming takeout business (the restaurant is mostly takeout, but there’s a patio when the weather is nicer), Pittman’s still finds time to put the SOUL in soul food by consistently giving back to the New Haven community and all its charitable causes.
Wait. Did I say 34 years? To tell the origin story of Sandra’s, we have to take it even further back to New Haven’s Edgewood neighborhood where Pittman, whose name back then was Harris, started cooking in the first place.
To celebrate Black History Month 2023, we have updated our guide to black owned restaurants across the state of Connecticut. If you see a place that is missing, please let us know. Big ups and thanks to Molly Alexander for compiling an excellent start to this list with her Google Map posted to Eat in CT. Get out there and support these restaurants.
We did our best to compile a comprehensive list, but if you know of a spot we missed, please contact us here.
The popular ice cream brand, Van Leeuwen, whose humble beginnings were as an ice cream truck in New York City, has just opened a scoop shop on Greenwich Avenue.
Owned by brothers and Greenwich natives Ben and Pete Van Leeuwen, who, if we’re really getting technical about their ice cream origin story, actually started in their hometown as the two rented a Good Humor truck to drive around and sell ice cream in for two summers beginning in 2002. And they’re both pretty stoked to not only be back in Greenwich, but to have opened their first suburban storefront.
Soul Tasty, Stamford’s only soul food restaurant, is waking up before the sun rises to whip up their new breakfast menu that includes an array of omelets, breakfast sandwiches, French toast, and a few southern classics.
Co-owner and chef Jean Gabriel teased Soul Tasty’s stick-to-your-ribs morning offerings with what’s arguably the star of the menu and an inevitable big seller, a fried chicken biscuit with a smattering of honey.
“It’s a southern-style biscuit that’s butter basted throughout the cooking process, so you still get the flakiness, the buttery taste, and the softness,” Gabriel says. “We wanted to get the biscuit to the point where when you have anything with it, like when you bite into the crispy chicken, that it meshes well together for a contrast of textures.”
As for the chicken part of the breakfast sandwich? It’s a boneless thigh, like the one Soul Tasty matches up with its chicken & waffles. Gabriel tells us that he marinates the thigh in a secret spice blend, allows it to sit, rotates it, flours it, eggs it, then dredges it again for a double crunch effect.
