By Isabella Fernández de Cueto, Nova Southeastern University

As summer approaches in South Florida and the temperatures rise, ice cream is not only a fun sweet treat– it’s a necessity. Luckily, Wilton Creamery is ready to serve the community with a combination of classic and unique flavors.

The shop has 28 core flavors, including non-dairy, sugar-free, and vegan options. They also offer over 200 different toppings and ten flavors of whipped cream.

“It’s upscale ice cream. I try not to use food colorings or artificial flavors, and we work really hard on making flavors that are clear,” said D.J. Colby, managing partner and co- owner of Wilton Creamery. “It’s strong and punches you in the face with flavor.”

Their most popular core flavor is “He’s Not Worth It!”, vanilla and English toffee sweet cream ice cream with Oreo cookies, Heath bar pieces, and chopped soft caramel pieces with a swirl of sea salt caramel. The comical yet creative name has an even funnier backstory.

“When I made it, we didn’t have a name for it, so we ran a contest. About a month and a half later, a customer came in drunk and yelled out ‘I don’t know what to name it, but when my boyfriend and I finally break up, I’m gonna come in, have a scoop of this, say ‘he’s not worth it,’ and then I’m gonna get another scoop’ and I told him ‘you just won $50 congratulations,’” Colby said.

In addition to their permanent flavors, they do small batches and limited batches. Small batches are weekly flavors that come out every Friday.

“They will stretch your palate, and they’ll stretch what you think ice cream can be. We do savory ice creams and we do things that you just simply don’t expect,” Colby said.

Some of the small batch flavors they’ve had in the past include Pur eh Tea, which is a Pur Eh Black Tea sweet cream ice cream, Black Sesame Shake Up, which is a black sesame sweet cream ice cream with brownie and cookie dough, and Buttered Toast with Apricot Jam, a buttery sweet cream ice cream with Cademon scented apricot jam and toast pieces.

Limited batches are monthly flavors, and they release two to four of them.

“They’re probably too expensive or too weird to do year-round, but since a lot of them come out year after year, people know what month they’re coming out and they start asking us about it two or three weeks before,” Colby said.

Their most popular limited batch flavors, according to Colby, are Cookie Cookie Cookie, cookie butter sweet cream ice cream with Oreos, chocolate chip cookies, and fudge covered graham crackers, and Pineapple Cilantro, pineapple sweet cream ice cream with chopped fresh cilantro, which is also a summer staple.

They also offer shakes, sundaes, affogatos, and bubble tea.

Colby, a Philadelphia native and 17-year-long Wilton Manors resident, has always been

around the restaurant industry, having worked in his family’s catering business at seven years old and later attending culinary school. Wilton Creamery opened 11 years ago, when his business partner spontaneously bought the space.

“My business partner had told me that I should be cooking somewhere, so I was like ‘Ok,

buy me a restaurant.’ I was joking. I had no expectation he would actually do it. One day he sent me a text message asking if I could get to this location, so I went and told him that it has potential. There was a garage in the back and a balcony out front, so I told him I couldn’t cook here because I can’t vent, and his response was ‘well I bought it, so we have to do something,” Colby said. “He told me he saw it at 9:45 in the morning and bought it at 10:07.”

Not being able to cook limited Colby’s options as to what the space could become, and he thought Wilton Manors could use a locally owned ice cream shop.

“My business partner and I drove around the area for nine hours trying ice cream and we

found that a good ice cream shop was needed in the community,” Colby said.

Loving to make unique and flavorful ice cream is not the only reason Colby does what he does, he also enjoys being active in the community, as evident by the countless times he waved at someone walking by the shop.

“This community is tight knit, so to me it means something to give back to the community I’m in and that I’m a part of,” Colby said. “There are customers that come four days a week, even every day, which I never would have expected.”