A hankering for the delicious ice cream he grew up with led Andrew Zimmerman to open Em’s Ice Cream, his first food truck (and now, so much more). You’ll find the truck at Civic Center Eats most Thursdays. Let’s get to know him as part of our continuing series meeting the chefs of Civic Center EATS.
Meet Andrew Silverman, owner of Em’s Ice Cream:
IGTD: What kind of food does your business serve?
Andrew: Organic ice cream
IGTD: What led you to open a mobile food business?
Andrew: I grew up down the street from a dairy in Maine where they made their own ice cream. So growing up, I just came to expect that everyone had access to delicious, fresh ice cream. Once I moved away, I quickly found out that was not the case. When we moved to Denver, everyone told us there was tons of great ice cream, but none of it was able to match up with what I grew up with. And I thought, how hard can it be to make ice cream?! Turns out, it’s much harder than you would expect. We actually started with ice cream carts, and then added one truck and then another in our second and third year of business. Now we have two trucks, two carts, a brick and mortar location at 2829 Fairfax St. in Park Hill, Denver and an ice cream counter inside of City Pop at 16th and Champa in downtown Denver.
IGTD: What do you feel is unique about the food you serve?
Andrew: We are the only all USDA organic ice cream company in Colorado. Everything is made from scratch in house, right down to our own chocolate chips in the Mint Chip and the caramel in the Salted Caramel. We use local ingredients where possible – like Palisade cherries and peaches. In the Park Hill shop, we serve hot fudge made with a recipe that is from my wife’s grandmother. We also make our own marshmallows that we can toast on top of a s’mores sundae.
IGTD: What’s an unsung item on your menu that you’d really encourage people to order?
Andrew: Salted Caramel is our most popular flavor, but Burnt Brown Sugar is one of my favorites. We take brown sugar just past caramelization so that it essentially becomes molten before adding it to our base. It tastes like the top of a crème bruleé. Ginger is my all-time favorite, but you do need to like ginger a lot! We use raw ginger, peel and blanch it to take out some of the bitterness, and then steep the ginger in our base overnight, similar to making a tea. Then we add bits of candied ginger at the very end. It’s very refreshing!
IGTD: To spread the love a little, what’s your favorite Colorado food truck to eat from?
Andrew: Real Deal has the best smoothies and is a summertime staple for me, OG Burger is my favorite burger in town, and anything on the J-Street menu is going to be great. Denver has a lot of great trucks run by really hard-working and passionate people who put a lot of love into what they serve.
For utmost enjoyment of Civic Center Eats, be sure to consider our 15 tips.
Make the most of your time at Civic Center EATS with these 15 tips.
What else is In Good Taste? Read about another food truck at Civic Center, Wong Way Veg.
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