The Museum of Ice Cream is a sugarcoated daydream — or nightmare, depending on your tastes. The location in SoHo opened in 2019, spawning out of a temporary pop-up three years earlier that reportedly had a 200,000-person wait-list. It’s less of a museum than it is a made-for-Instagram selfie emporium.
You won’t find much on display to spark any philosophical thoughts — what is there to say about the ephemeral nature of ice cream, or how about its role as a symbol of pure hedonism? You will instead find a banana jungle, a spiral slide, unlimited scoops of Fruiti Cereal Swirl and Ess-a-Bagel ice cream sandwiches. “Ready To Rediscover Your Inner Child?” the museum prominently asks on its website.
But in the depths of the museum’s sprinkle pool, a feud has been brewing. The inner child belongs to adults, and the Museum of Ice Cream wants to cater to them. Though “pinktinis” and sprinkle shots are on the menu, the party ends early: the latest available tickets on weekends are for 8 p.m.
For years, the museum has wanted to extend its hours and liquor sales. Last week, the New York State Liquor Authority denied the museum’s latest proposal, which would have allowed the museum to serve alcohol until 10:30 p.m. daily and midnight during private events. The application also sought to extend liquor consumption to all three stories of its building; alcohol use is currently limited to the main floor.
“We are requesting nothing beyond what other similar SoHo establishments already have — whether it’s ice cream shops with licenses to serve alcohol or museums that host occasional private events. We’re simply aligning with longstanding practices in the neighborhood and industry,” said Kate Ambas, a representative for the museum, in an emailed statement.
The authority sided with nearby residents who complain that the museum’s crowds — even in the daytime — detract from their quality of life.
“If I want to go up to the subway stop on Prince Street, oftentimes, I’m battling through a clogged sidewalk where the Museum of Ice Cream is,” said Pete Davies, 71, who lives on the same block as the museum. “If they can’t control it the way it is now, what assurance do we have that they can control or even care about controlling it if they expand the hours for events, parties and all that stuff later into the night?”
Mr. Davies, who has lived in SoHo for nearly 50 years, is a founding member of the neighborhood group the Broadway Residents Coalition. In response to the museum’s proposal, he organized over 60 SoHo residents to send letters to the State Liquor Authority, raising quality of life concerns, centered mainly around sidewalk congestion and noise.
The SoHo Alliance, which describes itself as a group of “neighborhood watchdogs” on its website, sent in roughly 40 additional letters from worried neighbors.
Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, SoHo was a bohemia for artists, who lived and worked in cheap industrial lofts. But over the years, it turned into a high-end shopping district, with Gucci, Prada and Tiffany moving in. Property prices have gone up to match — the median sale price for a home in the neighborhood was $3.5 million in May, according to Redfin. But many residents from that bygone era remain.
“People want to make SoHo a 24-hour neighborhood, and that’s the last thing that we want,” said Sean Sweeney, 79, the director of the SoHo Alliance. The area is typically crowded with shoppers from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., but after the boutiques close, “it gets pretty quiet.” He’s worried that this small window of peace is at risk of going away — “That troubles me,” he said, “We put up with a lot of stuff here, seven days a week.”
Mr. Sweeney added, “The city never sleeps, but its people do.”
Newer buildings may have “triple-pane windows to keep out sound, and they may have put in soundproofing as they redid their places, but the old lofts, the ones that the artists are living in, don’t have that,” said Lora Tenenbaum, 76, who has lived in SoHo since 1973.
“The building I live in and most of the buildings around here are 150 years old — brick with cast-iron facades, single-pane glass, notoriously friendly to noise,” Mr. Davies said.
This latest attempt from the Museum of Ice Cream to expand hours and operations wasn’t its only one. In 2019, the business sought a liquor license with 2 a.m. closing hours, before scaling back the request to a midnight close time following community feedback. In July 2020, the State Liquor Authority granted the museum an 8 p.m. close time based on neighborhood concerns.
“With only eight total seats and no clear reason for selling alcoholic beverages, we are concerned that the location will turn into an event space without an adequate security plan and will become a nuisance for surrounding residents,” the state agency said in its verdict. “If the applicant will truly operate as a family-friendly museum, then it will not need late-night hours.”
The Museum of Ice Cream is a vestige of the “experiential,” Instagram museum trend that spread throughout New York in the 2010s. The Egg House, the Rosé Mansion and Candytopia came and went, but the Museum of Ice Cream endured and now has six locations, including in Singapore, Austin and Chicago.
At its peak, the brand’s various pop-ups and locations drew an A-list crowd, including the Kardashians, Beyoncé and Chance the Rapper. It’s less buzzy today, somewhat buried in the endless attractions oriented for Instagram and TikTok.
The museum has quibbled with residents of other cities, too. In Miami, environmentalists raised concerns after the plastic sprinkles used to fill its sprinkle pool littered streets and clogged storm drains. And in San Francisco, after the museum was twice denied a liquor license, it shuttered in 2021.
Nearly six years into its New York location, the business once again wants to turn to late-night alcohol sales to boost foot traffic.
“The impact of revenue and viability with increasing rent and challenges from Covid and beyond make NYC challenging to stay in business without the added revenue. The evening hours remain the lowest demand times,” museum representatives wrote in a 2024 notice to neighbors, alerting people of its intention to apply for expanded hours.
Though this attempt to pivot into nightlife didn’t work out for the museum, some of its visitors and fans say they’d enjoy the space if it operated more like a bar.
On a recent Friday, there were around two dozen people on a 6 p.m. tour, with tickets still available for sale. Outside the museum, Makayla Santiago and Morad Manea finished their ice creams from an earlier visit for a college project on “experiences.” Late-night hours had perks beyond alcohol, they agreed.
“No children,” said Ms. Santiago, 21. “It would be a vibe.”
John Boston, 22, was also in support of the extended hours, even as he had complaints about the drink menu. “It’s a little expensive,” he said, “but if the drinks are flowing, who’s to say?”
Anna Kodé writes about design and culture for the Real Estate section of The Times.
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