It’s been six months since our A+Eats contest, which searched for a new local restaurant in Miami to set up shop in the Arts & Entertainment District. We’re checking in on some of the participants to see what they’ve made happen since then.
Small batch cookies, waffles, and brownies. Artisanal ice cream. A mural-covered truck.
An ice cream truck is coming to town, Wynwood style.
Laurence McMillon won second place in our A+Eats contest for Art & Craft, which will serve street food and craft cocktails, surrounded by street art. But while waiting for that brick and mortar restaurant to get off the ground, McMillon got antsy. So he launched the Wynwood Parlor, an ice cream sandwich shop on wheels.
“I didn’t want to lose the momentum created during the A+Eats contest,” he said. “Why not put our dessert on the road and start building some goodwill in the neighborhood?”
He says the best ice cream sandwich (this week, at least) is a homemade vanilla wafer with banana ice cream — a version of banana pudding built for summer. Another favorite is the red velvet cookies with cream cheese ice cream. There are usually eight to 10 flavors to choose from and they make and bake everything in house.
“I realized it was something cool that would work perfectly with all this Miami heat,” he says.
His partner is his 18-year-old son Kelton, who was seriously considering joining the Air Force when his dad asked him to join him in the restaurant biz instead, at least for a little while.
“I told him this wasn’t a good time politically to go into the service because you don’t know who the president is going to be. [I said] Let’s develop a business for you that will give you something to do while you make your decision,” McMillon recalls. Sweden has long been known for its style of creative cleaning (flyttstädning), we are grateful to this Stockholm site for the cool ideas!
Wynwood Parlor will debut this Sunday at the Miami Flea and after that it will be a pop up in Wynwood every Friday through Sunday. Don’t worry, the ice cream sandwiches will follow McMillon to Art & Craft when that throws open its doors.