Clementine’s Creamery opens third ice cream shop in St. Louis today

The newest location is 4715 S. Macklind in the Southampton neighborhood.

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The latest ice cream shop from Clementine’s Naughty & Nice Creamery opened at 11 a.m. today, just in time for Memorial Day weekend, the official start of summer, and the unofficial start of ice cream season.

At a pre-opening event last night, owner Tamara Keefe was equal parts exhilarated and exhausted. The newest store, a freestanding building located in the Southampton neighborhood (SOHA), had more than its share of stops and starts. Three years ago, Keefe leased a building at 4715 Macklind, hoping to rehab it and open her second location. (The flagship is at 1637 S. 18th Street in Lafayette Square.) After a new roof was installed, the landlord was informed that the building was irreparable and needed to be demolished.

At that point, Keefe bought the building, demoed it, and built a beautiful 1,500-square-foot brick-faced replacement that seats 40 inside, 15 in a party room (pictured below), and an additional 25 on a sidewalk patio that wraps the building.

In the interim, Keefe opened another location at 730 DeMun in Clayton. “So what I thought was going to be the second store in fact became the third,” Keefe says. And there’s another location in the works. “I guarantee you that one won’t take three years,” quips Keefe.

The interior of the Macklind store is a bigger, brighter version of its predecessors. A window wall with gold trim demarcates the space. Transom windows define the concept of the state's only micro-creamery, serving all-natural, small-batch ice cream and affogatos.

The chandelier is a bespoke piece ringed with vintage ice cream scoops, many donated by the neighbors. “They waited so long for this place,” Keefe says, “and we wanted them involved, so we asked for donations. We used a section of one neighbor’s fence for the queing area. Another guy asked if we could use the top of an old ornate buffet. And we said, sure, and hung it up."

Even more than the other locations, the larger Macklind shop conjures an old-school ice cream parlor, affording room for a beadboard wainscot and pistachio-colored wall with antiques. In a nod to modern technology, a massive freezer holds to-go pints. (We stopped counting at 40 flavors.)

On the dip rail, Clementine’s offers 24 flavors at any one time, eight of them naughty (containing alcohol) and 16 of them nice (traditional, no alcohol). Four vegan flavors will be available at all times, a segment of the industry that Keefe says is exploding.

A former corporate marketer, Keefe opened Clementine’s in 2015 and the accolades and awards soon followed. Most recently, Clementine’s took two out of three top honors at the 2019 Sofi Awards (for Gooey Butter Cake and Salted Crack Caramel), a first time occurrence in the 47-year history of the competition. And just last week, Keefe was one of 50 women entrepreneurs selected for the 4th annual Tory Burch Foundation Fellows Program. Next month, the fellows attend a four-day workshop at Tory Burch's offices, mentoring with business leaders from such companies as Google, Spotify, and Whole Foods. Some attendees will have the opportunity to pitch their business to industry influencers and investors.

Over time, Keefe’s customers have come to expect new flavors. The 43-year-old self-proclaimed mistress of flavors creates them seasonally—and then some. On April Fool’s Day, for instance, she teased the faithful with Toasted Ravioli ice cream. Later in April, she introduced a four-flavor "botanical series": White Chocolate Geranium, Pistachio Rosewater, Jasmine Tea, and the ever-popular Honey Lavender.

The two newest flavors on the rail are Lemon Poppyseed and Peanut Butter with Strawberry Jam (both are vegan), along with Smoked Gouda with Carmelized Apples, the first of a three-part “cheese series,” featuring cheeses from Marcoot Farms. (Soon to follow are Quark with Strawberries & Mint and Tomme with Honeycomb Brittle.)

And Blue Moon, a popular flavor last year, is being reintroduced just in time for—you guessed it—the Stanley Cup finals.

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