Minneapolis Crepe and Ice Cream Shop Goes Vegan

Minneapolis-based dessert shop Crepe & Spoon will transition to be fully vegan this month. When Crepe & Spoon opened approximately one year ago, the shop offered mostly vegan ice cream flavors with the exception of a few dairy flavors that co-owner Rachel Booth initially thought would be popular among groups of guests with varying dietary needs. Within two months, Booth transitioned the shop’s crepes to be fully vegan due to concerns of cross-contamination and began sourcing all-vegan ice cream mix-ins such as hot fudge, cookies, and candy. “It’s not a big jump for us to become all vegan. The dairy flavors stand out like a sore thumb because they’re the only items marked as such,” Booth told VegNews. “We want our shop to make sense to us and our customers. At the end of the day, just because we have more non-dairy options doesn’t really differentiate us from any other ice cream shop. And we want to give our customers peace of mind knowing everything they consume, they no longer have to ask if it’s vegan.” Booth anticipates that the remaining dairy in the shop will run out by mid-October, at which point she will use the empty ice cream wells to debut new vegan flavors that are more inclusive of customers with allergies to nuts. The shop currently serves both sweet and savory vegan crepes (the latter made with meats and cheeses from local vegan shop The Herbivorous Butcher) and ice cream made with coconut milk, cashew cream, and almond milk in flavors such as Cookie Monster, Peanut Butter Maple Bacon, and Strawberry Cheesecake.