PRESS KIT 2014
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel are interviewed for ther movie, “Sex Tape,” on the Coolhaus Ice Cream Truck.
BRAVO: WATCH WHAT HAPPENS LIVE
Natasha Case seen on Bravo’s “Watch What Happens Live!” hosted by Andy Cohen on March 19th, 2014. He calls her “the queen of all things ice cream.”
HALLMARK CHANNEL Natasha Case seen on Hallmark Channel’s Home and Family on May 28th, 2014.
FORBES MAGAZINE Natasha Case named to Forbes Food and Wine 30 under 30 list.
Natasha and Freya celebrate over Coolhaus sammies with John Paul DeJoria, founder of Paul Mitchell and Patron, of Forbes 30 under 30 party.
FOOD NETWORK Coolhaus CEO & co-founder Natasha Case is a guest judge on Food Network’s “Chopped” and “King of Cones.” Coolhaus is also featured on “Kid In a Candy Store.”
EVERYDAY WITH RACHAEL RAY
We tried 133 frozen chocolate treats to find the creamiest ice cream and richest flavor. Grab one before they melt! Best sandwich: Coolhaus IM Pei-Nut Butter Double Chocolate Chip Cookie + Peanut Butter Ice Cream Sure, this sandwich is pricey, but its sophisticated flavor makes it so worth the splurge. You get surpersize, fudgy cookies and ice cream made with real peanut butter -- plus a clever name!
COSMOPOLITAN LIVE IT UP Math is fun when the equation is ice cream plus cookies. Natasha Case, cofounder of ice-cream-sandwich company Coolhaus and coauthor of the Coolhaus Ice Cream Book, shares her favorite combos.
BRIDES MAGAZINE A delish idea for a summer wedding: an icecream sandwich bar! (from top Mango sorbet in red velvet cookies, pistachio truffle ice cream in chocolate-chip cookies, and ricootacherry ice cream in snickerdoodles.) Catering available near New York, Los Angeles, and Austin, Texas; sandwiches can be shipped to other location.
NEW YORK TIMES When Natasha Case, 26, lost her job as a designer at Walt Disney Imagineering about a year ago, she and her friend Freya Estreller, 27, a real estate developer, started a business selling Ms. Case’s homemade ice cream sandwiches in Los Angeles. Named for architects like Frank Gehry (the strawberry ice cream and sugar cookie Frank Behry) and Mies van der Rohe (the vanilla bean ice cream and chocolate chip cookie Mies Vanilla Rohe), they were an immediate hit. “I feel this is a good time to try new things,” said Ms. Case, who did a project on the intersection of food and architecture while studying for her master’s in architecture at the University of California
NEW YORK TIMES Coolhaus, a Los Angeles company that makes ice cream sandwiches in some oddball flavors like brown butter-candied bacon, is bringing a truck to New York and from Thursday to Sunday will give away sandwiches in Manhattan. From Monday to the end of the year, the truck will be selling ice cream sandwiches in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens
FRENCH GQ
QSR MAGAZINE First Team All-American Coolhaus Embracing the nostalgia of the Good Humor Man and cofounder Natasha Case’s architecture roots, Coolhaus has been serving its made-to-order ice cream sandwiches in an edible, customizable wrapper since April 2009. With three trucks in its fleet, Coolhaus announces its location via Twitter and Facebook. Dedicated fans wait up to two hours for the unusual dessert experience that features such flavors as Dirty Mint (fresh mint leaves, brown sugar, and molasses), Brown Butter Candied Bacon, Pistachio Black Truffle, and Red Wine Reduction.
PEOPLE MAGAZINE The authors of Coolhaus Ice Cream Book turn the classic drink into a sweet frozen treat: Arnold Palmer Sorbet
COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE Case was studying architecture at the University of California at Berkeley when on project received a jarring critique from a professor. “He told me it looked like a layer cake,” Case says. The merging of architecture and food became the philosophy behind Coolhaus, an ice-cream company that constructs frozen sandwiches in “stories” and builds flavors around architectural movements. After Case and business partner Freya Estrella brought their first ice-cream-sandwich truck to the 2009 Coachella festival, word of mouth caused a feeding frenzyliterally. Today, you can find Coolhaus in New York, L.A., Dallas, and Austin and in 1,000 supermarkets in 22 states. Not bad for a compnay that started four years ago with “just my credit card, a $700 loan from our friend Andy, and a truck we bought on Craigslist.”
COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE Not your average Chipwich: Coolhaus’ treats consist of a “cookie roof, floor, and ice cream walls.” Mix and match flavors like butterscotchand- potato-chip cookies with White Russian ice cream. Grab one (and some napkins!) at Whole Foods, or track the truck at eatcoolhaus.com.
NYLON MAGAZINE Natasha Case and Freya Estreller are the archiecture aficionados and ice cream enthusiasts behind Coolhaus, a growing mini-empire of, yes, architecturally-inspired ice cream treats. Kate Williams catches up with them in Los Angeles to talk about their new book (out this month f rom Houghton Mifflin) and how they turned one undrive-able postal truck into a mini-empire.
ARCHITECTURE BOSTON Think ice cream. Think famous architects. Think ice cream flavors named for famous architects: Frank Behry, Mies Vanilla Rohe, Richard Meyer Lemon, I.M. Peinut Butter, Louis Kahnteloupe, Norman Bananas Foster. Now throw in a “floor” and “roof” of choclate chip or oatmeal cookies and what have you got? Coolhaus, a designer ice cream sandwich company that has 50 employees, revenues of $3 million last year, and a fleet of pink and white food trucks selling to eager customers in New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas. http://www.architects.org/architectureboston/articles/life-after-arch-101
FOOD NETWORK MAGAZINE Young and Hungry up and coming food stars and all under 30. Ice cream “trucks” have been around longer than actual trucks: Street vendors used to peddle the stuff from pushcarts. But two design-savvy women from Los Angeles have given the whole concept a much needed update. With 15,000 in startup dough, architect Natasha Case and real estate developer Freya Estreller transformed an old postal van into a sleek, mobile ice cream business called Coolhaus (named after Dutch architect Rem Koolhaus). Customers get to “build” their own sandwich by choosing from six cookie bases, and 25 ice cream flavors. All the wrappers are made out of potato and printed with soy ink, so they’re earth friendly and edible. Considering Coolhaus sells 1,000 sandwiches a week, that adds up to a lot less litter for L.A.
LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE Coolhaus, the artisinal ice cream outfit, became wildly successful by embracing the ways of hip capitalism: food trucks, Coachella, Twitter. But after two years, owners Natasha Case and Freya Estreller are jumping forward to the past with a store front in Culver City, which will serve their signature ice cream sandwiches and other delights. At the opening you’ll encounter architecture themed confection flavors that include Pinapple Cilantro and Strawberry Mojito. You might even find popsicles in the shape of famous L.A. buildings. What would they be based on? “Anything by Frank Gehry,” Case says. Anything?
LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE Food trucks have become something of a motif- maybe mania is a better word- on the L.A, streetscape in the past year. Suddenly, you can get a couple hemispheres’ worth of cuisines from a galley kitchen on wheels. Clustered behind the UCLA Medical Center or along a dispiriting stretch near LACMA, the city’s fleet of brightly colored food trucks has inspired flash mobs, spawning life where there wasn’t any. In L.A., that’s a good thing.
LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE Here’s The Scoop: Gingerbread houses have nothing on edible structures by Natasha Case and Freya Estreller of COOLHAUS. The architecture buffs turned confectioners have been making Frank Gehry- and Richard Neutrainspired ice cream sandwiches since their first truck began rolling in 2009. This month the L.A. duo - who now have two storefronts - are releasing a book of mix-and-match ice cream and cookie recipes for building your own munchable manse.
LA BUSINESS JOURNAL But some merchants haven’t been quick to jump on board. Last year, AmazonFresh approached Coolhaus, a Culver City company that makes ice-cream sandwiches. Natasha Case, Coolhaus chief executive, said she was interested, but the price Amazon wanted for her treats was too low. “They wanted us to come down 30 or 40 percent from wholesale,” she said. “It was hard to make the numbers work.” But that was a year ago, and Coolhaus has since scaled up its production. Its ice-cream sandwiches are now available in most Whole Foods Markets around Los Angeles. If AmazonFresh comes calling again, Case said her answer might be different. Even though her products are more widely available, she said home delivery is a tempting opportunity. “We’re definitely revisiting this,” she said. “ I think direct to consuer is always going to be an advantage no matter how available you are.”
ENTERTAINMENt Weekly The Los Angelenos behind the beloved icecream-sandwich food-truck chain share the forrmulas to their architecturally-inspired treats, like the Mies Vanillaa Rohe, as well as some more aadventurous flavor profiles. Peking Duck Ice Cream, anyone?
PARADE MAGAZINE Vanilla is so last summer! The authors behind the new cookbook Coolhaus reinvent the ice cream sandwich by pairing gourmet cookies with exotic ice cream flavors.
LA MAGAZINE Los Angeles Magazine recommends following the @Coolhaus truck on Twitter to find where to get a Coolhaus sammie on a hot summer day. Seth Rogan has it in his TOP 10!
SUNSET MAGAZINE Cold Fingers: Since we last checked in with the duo behind L.A.’s Coolhaus ice cream sandwich truck, Natasha Case and Freya Estreller have opened two L.A. stores; expanded their fleet to Austin, Dallas and NYC; and started selling their architecturally-inspired creations in supermarkets. And now, a cookbook! Coolhaus Ice Cream Book offers recipes for the cookies (from snickerdoodles to vegan ginger molases) and the ice creams (Guiness chocolate chip, for instance), so you can invent your own sandwich combos, whether they’re low-rise or skyscraping.
QSR MAGAZINE When QSR last checked in with Coolhaus as part of “America’s Top 20 Food Trucks,” in February 2011, business partners Natasha case and Freya Estreller had just launched their second food truck, adding a roving kitchen in Austin, Texas, to their existing mobile unit in Los Angeles. In the three years since, Coolhaus has added three additional food trucks (in New York, Miami, and Dallas), opened two L.A.-based brick-and-mortar stores, and wiggled its ice cream products into 1,500 grocery stores across the country.
ANGELENO MAGAZINE Culver City’s sleek, chic purveyor of ice cream, cookies and token sandwiches boasts an adventurous array of flavors, like maple flapjack. The choices here are culinary building blocks meant to refelct the relatinoship between food and architecture as evidenced in the new “Coolhaus Ice Cream Book.”
NEW YORK MAGAZINE This season’s new batch of ice-cream sandwiches can be found on a truck or at the flea, showcasing Italian gelato or French macarons, or in a super peanutty new guise. This mobile L.A. transplant offers enough mix-and-match combinations to baffle a math grad. Try two different cookies on one sandwich- or make it a two-scoop double: $5, $8.
TIME OUT NEW YORK Coolhaus Ice Cream Sandwiches gained a cultish following in Los Angeles, but how will it fare in NYC remains to be seen. The outfit will kick off its eastern expansion with a four-day free giveaway of its cold creamy treats from April 28 to May 1. The New York operation features most of the same artisinal flavors--including blueberry ginger ice cream and red velvet cookies--and sizing options.
L.A. CONFIDENTIAL Feel free to scream for ice scream at CoolHaus. The wildly popular dessert truck spurred the recent opening of an ice cream shop in Culver City, which is home to gourmet flavors like pistachio truffle, root beer float, lemon thyme, carrot cake batter and butterscotch with rosemary. Top it off with signature architecturally inspired cookie sandwiches, and Coolhaus is officially the hottest place in town.
STAR MAGAZINE The food truck phenomenon has come full circle: Ice cream trucks are hip again! And chillest of them all is Coolhaus, which serves up all natural, handmade, customizable ice cream sandwiches. Creative combinations include chocolate chipotle ice cream on ginger molasses cookies and strawberry jalapeno ice cream paired with lemon rosemary cookies. The trucks are parked in L.A., Austin, Texas, NYC and the Hamptons. Visit eatcoolhaus. com for locations and orders.
CHIC PASSPORT MAGAZINE
Coolhaus: perfecto para el postre. No hagas caso a tu subconsciente y prueba la nieve de “candied bacon,” es excelente.
WESTWAYS MAGAZINE COOLHAUS: What began as the hippest ice cream truck on the block has since set up brick-and-mortar shops in Culver City and Pasadena. Ice cream flavors run the gamut from Guiness chip to fried chicken and waffles. For a breakfast-like treat, brown-butter ice cream with candied bacon is sandwiched between maple-flavored hotcake cookies and will make you wihs every morning started so sweetly.
UC BERKELEY WALL OF FAME Case’s “aha” moment occurred as an undergraduate. When an architecture professor said her design of student housing looked like a layer cake, she baked her next model. “I’m sure (my peers) were thinking, ‘Do we get to eat the damn thing when she’s done talking?’” Taking it further in 2008, Case began making ice cream sandwiches with a friend and naming them after architectural legends — such as Frank Berry and Mies Vanilla Rohe. They revamped a dumpy postal truck and parked it at a music festival, generating a hungry following within hours. Coolhaus — a play on Bauhaus, the modernist movement of the 1920s and ’30s, Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, and “cool house” (the “sammies” look like tiny houses) — now has trucks in four cities, a store, and a sweet deal with Whole Foods, among other retailers. But the obsessed need not feel guilty. Committed to sustainability, Case uses local, organic ingredients whenever possible and wraps each delight in edible paper. Follow Coolhaus on Facebook or Twitter @Coolhaus. (photo courtesy of New York Street Food)
DETAILS MAGAZINE It turns out you can improve on perfection. A scoop of creamy vanilla hits the spot on a sweltering summer day, but a new generation of chefs and gourmet-shop owners can’t leave the iconic cone alone. From the tower of treats at ice-crea- sandwich master Coolhaus, including s’mores cookies bookending sea-salt caramel, to the range of flavors- whiskey and pecan, cucumber, Earl Gray sriracha, basil maple- ice cream reminds us that we’ll always be kids at heart. Only now we can dig in whenever we want.
OUT MAGAZINE Those Neapolitan standbys vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry will forever conjure memories of festive childhood birthday parties. But today’s ice cream makers are totally rethinking the cone. “There has definitely been a shift in the public looking for desserts that aren’t just one note,” says Natasha Case, CEO of Coolhaus, a hip collection of food trucks in Los Angeles, New York, Austin, and Dallas offering flavors as varied as Vietnamese coffee, Peking duck, and Cuban Cigar. “People want sweet meets savory, meets spicy, meets boozy, meets sour,” she adds. “More traditionally, what main courses, appetizers, and amuse bouches have brought to the table.”
DEXTER DAILY Dexter co-star C.S. Lee is giving away ice creams for free at the Coolhaus truck in Venice Beach, L.A. That’s an awesome surprise for the fans who are patiently waiting to the line for Coolhaus killer combo ice cream sandwiches!
ORANGE COUNTY REGISTRAR
Coolhaus continues to grow its gourmet ice cream products, with recent expansion deals at Umami Burger and Whole Foods Market. The Los Angeles company’s ice cream sandwiches are now on the dessert menu at Umami restaurants in California. Coolhaus co-founder and Chief Executive Natasha Case said it seemed like a natural fit to partner with a premium brand that “is thinking big but keeping its integrity.” “Umami Burger and Coolhaus are a perfect match,” said Case. “We both strive to elevate very classic foods that everyone loves.” Case said sh’s in talks with other restaurants interested in Coolhaus’ ice cream sandwiches. Stay tuned.
AUSTIN MONTHLY There is something about an ice cream sandwich that brings out the childlike wonder in all of us. These two traveling food trucks often inspire locals to drop whatever they’re doing to build-their-own sandwiches with sinfully sweet cookie shells. There’s an assorted menu of ice cream, sorbet and gelato flavors, including brown butter candied bacon ice cream and lemon thyme sorbet.
EDIBLE MAGAZINE What do you get when you combine two savvy food-loving ladies, a passion for architecture, and an old mail truck? COOLHAUS Ice Cream Book: Custom-built Sandwiches with Crazy-Good Combos of Cookes, Ice Cream, Gelato and Sorbet.
CBS NEW YORK 5 BEST DESSERTS
NYC’s 5 Best Desserts CoolHaus Ice Cream Truck Moving Target New York, NY eatcoolhaus.com Last spring CoolHaus Ice Cream Truck made its way from Los Angeles for its East Coast debut. By the end of the summer, almost everyone knew about their delicious ice cream sandwiches made with Brooklyn-based Ovenly’s cookies and Coolhaus’ own creamy ice cream. With flavors rotating regularly, even the most ardent fan could each a different combination at every visit. Though pricey at $6 each, during the dog days of summer there were few better options to cool down the masses.
NATION’S RESTAURANT NEWS It turns out that gourmet ice cream sandwiches really turn people on. “We now have nine trucks total in LA, New York City, Dallas and Austin,” says CEO Natasha Case, who created the first Cool Haus truch from a converted postal van in Los Angeles in 2009. They also have a cart in Central Park, New York City, and one storefront -- soon to be two -- in Los Angeles. Cool Haus insists on baking on their own cookies and churning the ice cream, using hormone-free dairy and local and seasonal ingredients. The finished sandwich flavors include simple ones that pluck a classic heartstring, but the esoteric options have brought the trucks their national reputation. For example, you can bite into an ice cream sandwich version of Fried Chicken and Waffles.
KCET: I AM LOS ANGELES Not unlike the burrito and taco food trucks Angelenos have frequented for years, the new-wave of food trucks can be found on the streets of Los Angeles. But these new food trucks create buzz using social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter, and use the internet to broadcast the location of their trucks. These trucks have become a familiar phenomenon on the boulevards of Los Angeles. They come in different shapes, colors and have all different menus. Natasha Case is co-founder of Coolhaus -- a food truck serving architecturally-themed ice cream sandwiches. Sure, they have delicious flavors like bacon-flavored or persimmon flavored ice cream, but they want most to teach their customers a little bit about architecture. Coolhaus focuses on the architects whose work you can find throughout Los Angeles, from Franklin Lloyd Wright to Frank Gehry. I Am Los Angeles talked to Natasha about her food truck sensation.
BUDGET TRAVEL MAGAZINE Talk about a turf war. Near L.A.’s MacArthur park, oldschool vendors trade in Salvadoran pupusas plump with cheese and edible loroco flowers while a new wave of roving trucks, like the one above, tweet their daily locations and dole out custom ice cream sandwiches (@coolhaus) and buttery grilled cheese (@grlldcheesetruk)
FOOD & WINE MAGAZINE Coolhaus From a fleet of trucks (and an imminent Culver City storefront) comes a huge variety of ice cream sandwiches. Rotating flavors like Guinness chip and Meyer lemon mix and match with a range of cookies, like chocolate chip and ginger molasses. Recommended combinations are named after architects—order a Frank Gehry for strawberry with Snickerdoodle cookies. eatcoolhaus.com
ARCHITECT’S NEWSPAPER Everybody’s favorite ice cream sandwich comes from the Coolhaus ice cream truck, where you can stuff your face with cleverlynamed creations like Mies Vanilla Roe and ponder how Rem Koolhaas’ name ever got made into a dessert brand. Now Coolhaus’ owners, architects Freya Estreller and Natasha Case, who are opening Coolhaus trucks across the country and have even helped design a dog treat truck, have set up a permanent store in Culver City. The storefront abstractly references their trucks, from corrugated rubber that wraps around the service area to a windshield/menu to chrome detailing throughout. If you’re really ambitious you can buy make-at-home Coolhaus kits including hand-packaged dough and pints of ice cream, but you probably won’t be able to wait that long.
URBAN DADDY The City’s New Ice Cream Sandwich Truck Today, we’re taking you back to the ice cream trucks of yore. The jingles, the brain freeze, the endless streams of bacon... Oh. Your ice cream truck didn’t have bacon. Sorry to hear that. Correcting that colossal oversight: Coolhaus, the city’s first mobile ice cream sandwichery, debuting in Wynwood next week. Yes, ice cream sandwiches. Swirling around you. Available after late-night gallery jaunts in Wynwood, before catching a flick at O Cinema, while waiting for your favorite band to go on at the Stage. It’s a simple concept: take a dozen types of cookies (ginger, snickerdoodle, peanut butter) and more than 20 types of ice cream. Put them all on a shiny silver postal van circling the city. Let people mix and match to create their own desserts. Name them all after architects (hello, Frank Berry). Wrap them in edible wrappers (really). Rinse and repeat.
US NEWS & WORLD REPORT TRAVEL
America’s Funkiest Food Truck Cuisine Coolhaus Austin, Texas; Los Angeles, Calif.; New York City, N.Y.; and Miami, Fla. On Twitter: @COOLHAUS Everybody -- especially Coolhaus co-founder, Natasha Case (pictured) -- remembers running for the ice cream truck on a hot summer day. Now, you can relive that memory by tracking down Coolhaus in Austin, Los Angeles, New York, or Miami, and snagging one of their delicious, made-to-order ice cream sandwiches.
SAMSUNG GALAXY TABLET CoolHaus is the traveling ice cream sandwich business that has combined an old fashioned treat with cutting edge mobile technology with huge success. The GALAXY Tab is part of the story behind two friends, a remodeled postal truck, and a pretty sweet idea.
GRUBSTREET LOS ANGELES It’s amazing what a hobby can turn into. Natasha Case and Freya Estreller launched the first Coolhaus truck, serving architecturallythemed, exotic ice cream sandwiches from an overhauled postal van, at Coachella in 2009. Today, the partners have nine trucks and one cart in four cities (L.A., New York, Austin, and Miami), and just opened their first brick-andmortar shop in Culver City last month. The two are almost inseparable, whether sharing burritos, sushi, or pasta in L.A., or sampling their own ice creams at the trucks. “I sample a little for quality control,” says Case. “And a little because I just love ice cream. But you alwayshave ‘quality control’ in your back pocket asan excuse.” See where the two fuel up aroundL.A. and while serving Miami’s Art Basel, in this week’s L.A. Diet.
YAHOO! NEWS INTERNATIONAL Power Your Future: Natasha Case, CoolHaus Ice Cream Truck 282, 418 views Natasha Case of CoolHaus reinvents her career and the old fashioned ice cream truck.
FOOD REPUBLIC BLOG There Are Cool Kids Running Coolhaus You’re basically taking over the world… We have three trucks in LA, two trucks in Austin, and two trucks in New York City. We make our own ice cream and cookies and everything is all natural, handmade, and organic whenever possible. And you’re hired for a lot of special events… We’ve done everything from catering Justin Bieber’s birthday to bringing the truck to having the truck bought out and sponsored by Mozilla Firefox. [They were also at Coachella.] We gaveaway free Mozilla themed ice cream sandwiches in custom Mozilla edible wrappers for four days in the three cities we’re in. Can I hire you to serve at my party? Of course! We’ll make a custom ice cream and name a sandwich after you. How about the Matt Rocky Rodbard?
ZAGAT REVIEW First, there was an old mail truck that rolled into Coachella to serve architecturally themed ice cream sandwiches. Then came more trucks, a Culver City shop, more trucks in other cities, ice cream sandwiches in Whole Foods nationwide, and Dexter and towering ice cream sandwiches. Now Natasha Case and Freya Estreller are upping the hipster quotient for Pasadena by debuting their new Coolhaus shop in Old Town today, just in time for National Ice Cream Sandwich Day. You’ll find all the Coolhaus favorites here - ice creams in a world of flavors, from baked apple to White Russian, smooshed between fresh-baked soft cookies and wrapped in edible paper. Read more at http://la-confidential-magazine. com/living/articles/real-estate-trend-staging-homes#Uye6HLQOUrFkIXOJ.99
EPICURIOUS EPI-LOG There have been some epic food-fusion trucks as of late: Kogi, the Kimchi Taco Truck, the Mexicue Truck, the Blaxican Food Truck. But the most high minded just might be Coolhaus, a fleet of nine trucks serving up ice cream sandwiches inspired by design. Calling what they do “farchitecture”, the owners serve up treats named for architects: Mies Vanilla Roh (Chocolate Chip Cookie and Vanilla Bean Ice Cream), Frank Behry (Snickerdoodle Cookie with Strawberry Ice Cream). Coolhaus is the brainchild of an architect, Natasha Case, and her partner and Freya Estreller.
RELISH BLOG Where: Los Angeles, CA Founded in 2008 by foodies Natasha Case and Freya Estreller, Coolhaus sells all natural, handmade and often organic ice cream sandwiches. Inspired by famous architect Rem Koolhaas and the 1920’s modernist Bauhaus design movement, these sandwiches are truly constructed pieces of art. Even better, they are served in edible, all natural and calorie-free wrappers. And with gourmet ice cream flavors eclectic as wasabi and a fleet of delish cookies that are locally baked, it’s no wonder this truck is taking the city by storm.
NATION’S RESTAURANT NEWS Coolhaus: Architectural ice cream sandwiches in Southern California Ice cream has such a broad appeal, and ice cream sandwiches in particular are relatively uncharted in the bigger picture of ice cream and frozen desserts. Also, our product is delicious when the flavors are classic and simple, but also a great canvas for experimentation. WHAT’S THE BEST THING ABOUT RUNNING A FOOD TRUCK? THE WORST THING? The dynamic of the day to day—no day is the same! That’s also the worst part though. Sometimes it would be nice to be able to predict things better!
SPIRIT MAGAZINE I studied architecture for seven years, and at times I found the industry to be elitist. I wanted to make design more accessible, and I thought, What better way to do that than ice cream sandwiches? We launched our first food truck in 2009, naming our sandwiches after famous architects. Now we have trucks in New York City, Los Angeles, Austin, and most recently, Dallas. In May, we published a cookbook that also includes design facts. The blackberry ginger gives it an unexpected twist. Pairing it with a double-chocolate cookie makes it taste like a chocolate-covered blackberry. We call it the Non-Dairy Frank Behry.
TUMBLR STORYBOARD Fast forward to April 2009. Natasha is standing inside a chrome and hot pink postal van in California, her head peeking out of the side window. Beside her is Freya Estreller, new business partner and girlfriend, who’s equally passionate about both design and food. They’re selling flavor-bursting, magnificent-looking, architecturally inspired ice cream sandwiches at the Coachella music festival. And they’re selling them very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that they’re sold out in three hours. After leaving their lucrative careers — Natasha had been an Imagineer at Disney, responsible for designing the theme parks, and Freya was in private equity and real estate — they’re now educating through deliciousness, one ice cream sandwich at a time. The $2,900 postal van they originally bought on Craigslist has been relegated to the backyard of Freya’s childhood home. Today, with nine trucks in five cities, Coolhaus ice cream can be found in 100-plus Whole Foods stores. And this is just the beginning. They’ve created a “Farchitecture” empire by marrying their passions for food and architecture.
SERIOUS EATS BLOG So I was pretty excited to try their new line of pre-packaged ice cream sandwiches, which will be sold at various supermarkets nationwide including Whole Foods and Sprouts. “Flavors were chosen based on the data we received from our customers at the trucks,” explains Coolhauser Dan Fishman. “We blended the best sellers with some more “unique” options to create an initial mix that we intend to grow over time.” For now, those five flavors are Cara-Mia Lehrer (Snickerdoodle cookie + Salted Caramel ice cream), Louis Ba-Kahn (Chocolate Chip cookie + Brown Butter Candied Bacon ice cream), Mies Vanilla Rohe (classic combo of Chocolate Chip cookie + Tahitian Vanilla Bean ice cream), Mintimalism (Double Chocolate Chip cookie + Dirty Mint Chip ice cream) and Renzo Apple Pie-ano (Oatmeal Raisin cookie + Baked Apple ice cream). For me, the thing that secures Coolhaus in ice cream stardom is equal parts flavor and texture. Coolhaus manages to achieve near perfect texture at their trucks: flexible, even soft cookies with creamy yet structurally sound ice cream. I feared how this would translate to a sandwich that was forced to sit in the freezer aisle. Spoiler alert: They nailed it. Even after spending a few days in my own freezer, which verges on too cold, the packaged cookies had a perfect texture. Our teeth glided through every cookie without a crunch, the mammoth layers of ice cream never once fell out the sides. “How do they do it?” a fellow taster asked. I wish I had the answer. For thoughts on how the flavors fared, click through the slideshow above.