There’s no such thing as bad ice cream but sometimes you want more than a regular scoop. Fort Worth has you covered like noplace else in DFW, with a whole host of places putting fun and creative twists on frozen desserts. From over-the-top shakes to crazy ice cream toppings to shaved snow, Fort Worth is the place to be in summer 2025 for offbeat frozen treats.
Here are nine spots to find unique frozen treats around Fort Worth:
Creamistry
Ice cream shop from California with a location in Fort Worth uses liquid nitrogen to freeze ice cream at a higher level. They flash-freeze ice cream at -32 C instead churning. There’s no shame in ordering a simple scoop when you have flavors like coffee and matcha green tea, but check out the Party Animal, a stacked shake with frosted animal cookies, animal cookie ice cream, and mini marshmallows. They also have a vegan dairy-free ice cream made with oat milk that’s extra creamy.
Curly’s Frozen Custard
Forget the chains: This hometown custard shop in the Cultural District has an old-school dessert vibe with customizable custards, shake-like concretes, and decadent sundaes like the Cowtown Classic with butterscotch, vanilla cake, butter pecan custard, and candied pecans; or the Pulido’s Praline Sundae featuring vanilla Custard on top of shortcake, with locally-made Pulido’s praline and caramel.
Duck Duck Scoop
Quirky shop serving ice cream and milkshakes in North Richland Hills puts an adorable rubber duck on every item. Owner Lori Cuadros said the ducks were something “easy, washable, and collectible.” One of their many decadent shakes is the Un-Birthday Sundae featuring two scoops of Superman swirl (vanilla) ice cream topped with whipped cream, sprinkles, 2 cupcakes, a strawberry wafer, and a rubber duck for $10.
Ice Box Creamery
Family-owned creamery in west Fort Worth has ice cream, shaved ice, and sundaes, with lots of toppings including fresh fruit and wafer cookies. One refreshing treat is the limoncello featuring lemon ice cream, lemon bread, lemon sauce, limoncello cake bites, whipped cream, and white chocolate chips. Starting at $7 for a small sundae.
Original Rainbow Cone ice cream cone with stacked slices.Photo courtesy of Original Rainbow Cone
JOY Macarons
Dallas macaron chain with a location at the Shops at Clearfork does a macaron twist on the ice cream sandwich macaron. The cereal milk is fun: a blue-green- macaron with Fruity Pebbles ice cream and a white chocolate shell on one side topped with Fruity Pebbles cereal, for $7.50.
Melt
Local ice cream chain with three Fort Worth locations (plus one in Dallas) does an extra rich ice cream you can order by the scoop or pint, as well as frozen confections such as Peach Cobbler Cheesecake featuriing ice cream sandwiched between two brown sugar graham cracker cookies.
The Original Rainbow Cone
Ice cream chain from Chicago known for its distinctive ice cream “slices” made its Texas debut in Hurst in November and has been a hit ever since. Their signature Rainbow Cone comes stacked with five flavors: orange sherbet, pistachio, Palmer House (vanilla with cherries & walnuts), strawberry, and chocolate for $7. They also serve regular scoops, shakes, and sundaes layered with cake and ice cream.
Pop Pop Feducchi’s
Weekend-only Italian ice stand does a gourmet version of Italian ice, which is churned like ice cream, rather than shaved like shaved ice. Their flavors are potent, using real fruit. In addition to Italian ice, they also do a Philadelphia-style ice cream that’s lighter than typical ice cream. They constantly rotate in creative new flavors such as Key lime pie, sprinkled with shortbread cookie crumbles, so there’s always something new to try.
Vampire Penguin
Dessert chain from California specializes in shaved snow, which is lighter and fluffier, so much so that they often call it shaved snow. The chain is Filipino-inspired, which means they offer shaved snow in exotic authentic flavors and options such as the Halo Halo, a taro-flavored snow with sweet beans, jack fruit, ube paste, flan, and condensed milk. The chain just opened a location in Hurst — its second, following a location in Granbury.
Halo Halo at Vampire PenguinVampire Penguin