The Penny Ice Creamery (Santa Cruz, CA)

THE PENNY ICE CREAMERY (Santa Cruz, CA) – I know it’s the second day of Fall and I should technically be posting about pumpkin spice or apple cider, instead of eating ice cream near the beach, but it’s California. I get to eat ice cream at the beach any time of year!

If you’re active on Instagram, then you’ve seen The Penny Ice Creamery with its famous marshmallow fluff ice cream cone. That is what enticed me to come stop by, and it fit into my plans perfectly when I went to the beach one day with a bunch of my work friends.

After lounging on the beach all day, a few of us decided to grab some ice cream before making that annoying drive home. Seriously, it always sucks leaving Santa Cruz, especially in the summer.

Luckily, we pulled up to the shop at the right time, since the line got long after us. The shop is cute and rustic inside, and you can see them working in the kitchen as well as the cute ice cream cart they bring out for events. Because we arrived at a time that wasn’t too busy, we also found a spot to sit at.

Each day has a different set of flavors and they seem to change some of them up seasonally along with their staples. They not only source and feature local ingredients, but it’s the only ice cream shop in Santa Cruz that makes everything completely in house from scratch! They had a bunch of interesting flavors such as Honey Yogurt Plout and Burnt Cinnamon.

I played it safe, first in getting a cup instead of a cone and ordering Hazelnut Salted Caramel. It’s super creamy and has the perfect amount of sweet and salty, so neither one is overpowering and cloying. I do wish I had gotten a cone on the side, because they smelled so good! I do wish I had tried some of the other flavors instead because they were so interesting!

Hope to come back to Penny’s in the future whenever I do go to Santa Cruz next!