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Black Food Fridays x Park Circle Creamery
“People make it fun”. You can truly feel that Maurice Ray loves what he does and his positive demeanor makes you smile the moment you walk in the door. Maurice started Park Circle Creamery in 2016 with his brother on East Montague Ave- right down the road from the North Park Village area of North Charleston he grew up in. Staying involved in his community is still important to Maurice and Park Circle Creamery, most notably with the “Art on Ice” area at the front of the shop that allows local artists of all mediums to showcase their work to the public. Park Circle Creamery began with 16 flavors of classic, hand-scooped ice cream and shakes, but have expanded their menu by adding ice cream bars (always dip it and top it), floats and even pints that you can take home with you. I spent an afternoon with Maurice to learn about how all this started, what's to come for Park Circle Creamery, and what to get when you visit for #blackfoodfridays
How did Park Circle Creamery become a reality?
My brother. My brother is the visionary, and I guess you can call me the person who grabbed a hold of the vision. We were both born and raised right here in North Charleston, and as a businessman and entrepreneur, my brother scouted this area and wanted to open an ice cream shop. He called me and I declined every chance I got- I'm a disabled combat vet and was going to go back to what I know, the military. He kept hounding me and ended up calling my mom, saying “you need to talk to Maurice- he's being stubborn about this.”
But all jokes aside - during the last conversation we had before we started this endeavor he said, “Man this is best for you and your family. Just trust me”. And when he said trust me, I did. We started in 2015 and officially opened that next year in 2016.
When someone visits Park Circle Creamery for the first time, what should they order?
Lemon Crunch. It's refreshing, it was the very first ice cream we made, and is what speaks for us. That and our Blueberry Cheesecake. We came up with the idea of opening up an ice cream shop and not one of us had ever made ice cream, really. So the first experimental flavor was Lemon Crunch. And we nailed it. Our first week open I took it off the menu for a bit and our initial customers who had a chance to try it said that if you don't put that back on the menu, nobody is going to support you. So it’s been there ever since.
What’s the future look like for Park Circle Creamery?
So we recently added ice cream bars to the menu as part of a new collaboration called Holy City Creamery. We teamed up with Jessica Tenberge of Holy Sticks (previously on King Street), to create this new, growing concept that is a combination of the best of Holy Sticks and Park Circle Creamery. Park Circle Creamery is always going to be classic, solid ice cream. Holy City Creamery is going to be that classic ice cream, but with a twist. We’re going to have your classic toppings, but expand beyond that with concepts like Taco Tuesday where we do taco waffle cones and Thirsty Thursday where we’ll do some crazy combos that you’ll learn about soon. It's going to really allow us to put our creativity on display.
Featured Ice Cream Combination
Vanilla and Brownie Walnut with a Red Clay Barrel Aged Hot Honey drizzle
Written and Photographed by:
Jai Jones @jaieats
