It’s à la Mode in Reverse

A pint of Sweet Cherry Pie ice cream from Betty Jo’s. Photo: Alberto Ortiz

At 10:59 a.m. on August 1, I promptly ceased all activity — I was interviewing someone for a story, and had warned them ahead of time I may need to cut the conversation short — in order to open an Instagram link to order a pint of ice cream. My interview subject understood, because the ice cream in question was a pint from Betty Jo’s, which since launching operations earlier this summer has seen its profile skyrocket — so much so that when I landed on the Instagram page at 11 a.m. on the dot, every container for the month was sold and I saw that 102 other people were at that moment trying to buy the ice cream, too.

“The first two months we just did a Google form and it was mostly friends and family,” says Maddie Nehlen, one-half of Betty Jo’s, along with Erin Forden. That was the start of summer, in June and July, which is when Nehlen and Forden began making ice cream out of both of their apartment kitchens and hand-delivering the $12 pints — reservations all drop on the first of each month — across the city. In June, the flavor was Coney Island Queens (vanilla mixed with waffle-cone chunks and chocolate sprinkles), while July brought cherry pie, which is when Betty Jo’s really took off.

The influencer Chelsea Zeferina posted a TikTok about it that currently has 1.2 million views. “When you see what’s under this lid, you are gonna freak out,” Zeferina says while tapping a frosty carton with her pointy citrus manicure. Just beneath the lid is a layer of candy-red compote framed with a frozen lattice crust. It sits on top of a base of milky vanilla-bean ice cream swirled with chunks of pie crust and more cherry jam. I was finally able to get a pint of my own after emailing them from my work address, and when I opened it, I swear I let out an audible gasp. Cracking the buttery crust and smashing it through the saucy fruit into the ice cream is necessary to build a perfect spoonful. It’s cherry pie à la mode in reverse.

“We came up with this idea of a very luxury Coldstone,” says Nehlen. She and Forden, who went to pastry school during a post-COVID work hiatus, develop the flavors together, having so far opted for a lighter, Philadelphia-style ice cream that doesn’t contain any eggs. (The occasional ice crystal, instead of the smoother texture that comes from using a custard base, is an endearing imperfection in the world of ultra-stabilized dairy.)

The two got the idea while working together at the restaurant-tech company Bento Box. “In theory, I would make the ice cream, Erin would make the pastries and it would be maybe a brick-and-mortar situation where people could come in and there’s no rules,” Nehlen says. “You’re like, ‘I want a slice of apple pie mixed in with that chocolate-ripple ice cream. And then also, can you make it an affogato?’”

Now that they’ve become so well known for the lattice-topped style, it might be a while before they try something other than pie: “We’ve set ourselves up to need to have squeal-inducing visuals for every month,” says Forden. “We were going to do a different flavor for August, but then after that TikTok blew up we said we have one more month to give the people what they want. It’s time to find a new pie for the fall.”

September 1 is coming — they expect they’ll be able to break even for the first time — and the duo is splitting all of their available time shopping and preparing batches of the ice-cream base before absconding to their respective kitchens to churn the ice cream in four-quart machines that they can then assemble into “pies.” On delivery days, the two load ice cream and dry ice into coolers for transit by car or subway or bike and hand out dozens of orders. The first two drops were limited to no more than 50 pints, while in August, they’re making 100, 40 for delivery, and another 60 for their first in-person event at ABC Beer on August 25.

To deal with their instant success, Forden and Nehlen have each acquired a supplemental freezer, in addition to looking at commercial kitchen space for rent now that scaling up is a very real option. The video “kicked us into gear,” Forden says. “It was very crazy, and you can’t jump to your next stage unless you’re made to.”