Tin Cup Ice Cream & Desserts – A Third Bowl Homemade Ice Cream Scoop Shop

MTN Town Magazine Best Restaurants in Colorado, Business, Entrepreneurs 0

A Story about People, Passion, and Perfected Ice Cream in Crested Butte

Crested Butte, Colorado is a special town with a long history and close-knit community, and what would a quirky town be without a local ice cream shop? Look no further than Tin Cup Ice Cream and Desserts CB, right off the main strip with hundreds of rotating, homemade flavors.

Hopefully you have sampled the high-quality products, and maybe even met the owners Matthew and Lydia Price. With their fun glasses and passion for the business, they serve up ice cream at both of their locations throughout the busy seasons.

The Prices didn’t stumble into Crested Butte on accident, even though the ice cream shop was a bit of a surprise. They met in Oklahoma where they got married and had their only child. A few years later, they picked up and moved to Matthew’s dream location, Crested Butte.

His family has been vacationing in the mountain town his whole life, and he always dreamed about coming back. To him, opening a restaurant was his way back to Crested Butte.

Matthew said, “My why was Crested Butte. I wanted to get out of suburban America…and this is the sanctuary from getting out of that.”

The Prices opened their first restaurant on Elk Avenue in 2019. Their mission was to create quality food in a grab-and-go style.

They originally sold pasties; meat pies made popular by Cornish tin miners. The name “Tin Cup CB” comes from those miners and the mining ghost town.

The Prices wanted to bring historic food back into the valley, but they encountered obstacles such as staffing a kitchen, lack of experience, and burnout. Before they could figure out their snags, COVID shut the town down.

Around the same time, their friend, Kendall Tanslersky, reached out about needing a short-term solution to keep her ice cream company in business. So, the Prices built out a little corner of their restaurant for Third Bowl Homemade Ice Cream as a temporary solution.

Tanslersky had lost her retail space in town, and was renting a small kitchen space at Frank’s Deli from Josephine Kellett. That way she was still be able to make ice cream for the Prices. She gives Kellett credit for saving Third Bowl Homemade Ice Cream and still considers Crested Butte a home base for her brand.

“I think it’s still really important to have a presence in Crested Butte,” Tanslersky said. “[Tin Cup CB] is a super important partner to me. I admire them both, I like them a lot as people, and they are super great to work with.”

Shortly after COVID shut the town down, the Prices pivoted their restaurant into a sandwich shop, but it still wasn’t fulfilling their passions. However, the ice cream quickly became Lydia and Matthew’s favorite part. It became clear their passion aligned more with their family’s sweet tooth and Third Bowl Homemade Ice Cream’s products than sandwiches.

“Kendall is certainly a large part of our story, we can’t really tell our story without her,” Matthew said and mentioned how important the mutual support became during COVID. “[COVID] caused us to be creative, and thankfully we had the option with the ice cream because that brought more people into our shop that otherwise wouldn’t have come. We were able to save them, and at the same time they were able to save us.”

Now, Tin Cup CB and Third Bowl Homemade Ice Cream enjoy a symbiotic relationship where they both value high-quality products and positive community involvement. Tanslersky talked about how easy it was to communicate with the Prices about her passions and what mattered to her about the product such as how it’s made and the fun flavors.

“I’ve never had to struggle to explain my vision with them or what matters to me about it,” she said. “I think we have a lot of the similar vision about the quality of the product and that it should be fun and creative. Ice cream is about making people happy.”

In April of 2022, the Prices opted out of their lease and made the big move to open a mountain location, selling ice cream, desserts, and cheap booze. With the demand and success at the new mountain location, the Prices realized they needed to bring ice cream back down into town since their Elk Avenue location had closed and they did not have a presence in town anymore.

That love and demand for Third Bowl Homemade Ice Cream partly comes from the choice of over 500 whacky flavors of delicious ice cream, including dairy free and gluten free options.

When Tanslersky started, she didn’t know anything about the ice cream business, except wanting to make ice cream she loved. Now, she sells to over three dozen vendors and is a licensed dairy plant.

“We make everything in house from scratch,” Tanslersky said. “There’s no reason not to. Ice cream is a food that should be made and sold fresh.”

She operates in Hotchkiss where she currently works hard to source as many local ingredients as possible such as fruit, dairy, honey, eggs, and more. If she cannot find a local ingredient, she still seeks out the best suppliers she can.

“I think there’s a lot of value in breaking things down and making them from scratch because for me it’s fun, I like knowing what’s going into it,” she said.

She uses local peaches and apples when they are in season, allowing Tin Cup CB to enjoy the rotation of local flavors in their shops. Tanslersky is always making new flavors as well, usually resulting in special monthly flavors.

According to Lydia, flavors are swapped like crazy during peak seasons. This gives Tanslersky and the Prices a chance to introduce even more flavors to customers and educate them on their products.

“Kendall is a bit of a Wonka. She won’t do some of the popular flavors because she wants people to branch out and try new flavors,” Lydia said. “She does weirdo whacko flavors.”

Tanslersky said she enjoys making all of the special flavors because it keeps her entertained, “If I just did the same things over and over it would get really boring. The rotating ones keep it fun for me.”

The two busiest weeks in the winter season are during Spring Break when Crested Butte fills with students from neighboring states, but the summers are the busiest overall. The normal amount of tourism gets condensed into only two and a half months during the summer versus the multi-month winter.

With that being said, tourism is the main driver for traffic into Tin Cup CB, according to the Prices. They are grateful for the influx of tourists who usually visit for the recreation activities in Crested Butte.

While the Prices and other businesses benefit from the tourism driven economy, issues arise in town from visitors during these peak seasons such as traffic, trail erosion, waste pile up, health emergencies, and more.

Matthew is on the board of the Chamber of Commerce, which aims to educate people about visiting etiquette and provide community information. The board hopes to improve peak season experiences for locals and visitors alike.

Currently, the Prices are maintaining and improving their two current locations. Lydia also offers her baking services in addition to helping run their stores. Her services range from custom cakes to cookies and much more for weddings and other events.

Tin Cup CB and Third Bowl Homemade Ice Cream are staples for Crested Butte, and it will be exciting to see what the future holds for them both.

Tin Cup Ice Cream & Desserts – A Third Bowl Homemade Ice Cream

Crested Butte – 313 3rd St and Mt. Crested Butte – 620 Gothic Rd, Suite C-150

www.tincupcb.com

www.thirdbowl.com

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