Ice Cream (and the Like) is the New Cupcake

A few years ago, neighborhood ice cream places like Wally's and The Mix started falling off the map and the situation became one of going to Cold Stone or Haagen Dazs, or going ice cream-less. Then Molly Moon's opened in Wallingford and people flocked to it. Then another one opened on Capitol Hill and everyone acted like they'd never had a scoop of damn iced cream before, lining up down the block for the salted caramel (too true to its name) or balsamic strawberry (pretty good).

A recession and general, uh, availability to follow one's passions (or "joblessness," whatever) + Seattle's proven propensity to pile on dessert bandwagons + heatpocalypse '09 = business opp obvious to just about anyone still able to get a loan. Now there's a frozen custard place near the Capitol Hill Moon's location--and suddenly Molly's ice cream is "horrible" and for heathen rubes only. Might as well open one in SeaTac now. Last night on 45th, very near the original Molly's, we spotted a gelato place with a brand new shingle out, obviously ready to scoop up the Moon's overflow.

But there are still a bunch of vacated store fronts and brand-new, street-level retail spaces under condo buildings whose developers are desperate to sell us 2bdrms and a lifestyle all over the city that are just begging for frozen dessert gold mines of their own. Ballard and Fremont--both now too expensive to actually start trends--seem like likely targets. Anyone want to set the over/under for new ice cream places in Seattle between now and the 4th of July? Anyone want to go in on one with us?