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Soft Peaks expands to Burnaby, adds "Frissant" Ice Cream Sandwich

Vancouver-based Soft Peaks Ice Cream opened its second location this month – in the heart of Metrotown, across from Metropolis at Metrotown.

There’s a new player making waves in the Burnaby ice cream scene, and it’s looking to become the city’s new favourite.

Vancouver-based Soft Peaks Ice Cream opened its second location this month – in the heart of Metrotown, across from Metropolis at Metrotown.

 Photo courtesy Soft PeaksPhoto courtesy Soft Peaks

Soft Peaks Ice Cream opened three years ago in Gastown (at 25 Alexander St. just north of Powell Street). The company, started by brothers Dan and Ken Kim, prides itself on offering ice cream that is made from organic milk with “just a touch of sweetness.”

Soft Peaks also does its best to source its ingredients from farms in the Fraser Valley and Okanagan. One of its main attraction is a collaboration with Vancouver-based Swiss Bakery – the frissant ice cream sandwich.

Created by Swiss Bakery, the frissant is a hybrid of a fritter and croissant. At Soft Peaks, they slice it in half and fill it with their homemade ice cream.

“It’s really crisp, sweet, it goes very well with our ice cream, and you can kind of build your own based on the toppings and the ice cream base you want,” said Soft Peaks marketing manager Amy Kim. (Amy is married to co-founder Dan Kim.)

 Photo courtesy Soft PeaksPhoto courtesy Soft Peaks

The Burnaby location is the first Soft Peaks to open outside of Vancouver and features more than 1,500 square feet of space, almost twice the size of the Gastown shop.

“The whole concept of this second location is ice-cream café,” Amy said

Kim imagines Soft Peaks becoming a destination, where guests can gather and enjoy a treat (or two) at their leisure. The Burnaby location seats 36 comfortably with a variety of benches and tables. The renewed vision was born out of comments Soft Peaks received from its Gastown customers, according to Amy.

“Gastown is a beautiful store. It’s like a loft so it has a second (level), and people love to hang around that upstairs, especially in the summer, looking over to the main floor, but it’s not as big as the Burnaby location. We don’t have that many seating areas. So students or guests who wanted to stay longer wouldn’t be able to do that in Gastown as much as they wanted,” she said.

“When we were designing the second location here, we just wanted to make sure we do have many spaces where our guests can hang around – by the window, where it’s brighter, or a more intimate and quiet space like the back.”

But fans of the Gastown shop won’t be completely taken aback by the new location. It still has the familiar yellow accents and black and white menu boards.

 Photo courtesy Soft PeaksPhoto courtesy Soft Peaks

The move to Burnaby, meanwhile, has been a long-time coming. Amy said she’s seen many of her competitors expand within Vancouver or into the North Shore, but cities east of Vancouver remain, for the most part, untouched.

“The population is increasing here,” she said. “I didn’t see that much of a dessert option available in Burnaby yet, and we wanted to be a pioneer.”

They hope the Burnaby location will also entice residents in communities east of Burnaby and even south of the Fraser. The goal is to be a destination for folks from Port Moody, Surrey and beyond.

Soft Peaks Ice Cream is located at 4603 Kingsway (across from Metropolis at Metrotown, just west of McKay). 

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