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Westray's Finest will offer pints in flavors including Madagascar Vanilla, Gold Rush and Cookie Clockout.
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Westray Paul, owner and namesake of the new ice cream shop on Lombardy Street.
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Westray's Finest Ice Cream is opening in the former Ever Better space at 214 N. Lombardy St.
Westray Paul doesn’t appear to take things too seriously. And if you ask him why he’s chosen to be a purveyor of ice cream, his sarcasm-tinged answers include a desire for a more relaxed lifestyle, inspiration from Carytown mainstay Bev’s and the summer he worked aboard a Van Leeuwen ice cream truck in New York.
But in time, the dense ice cream, in flavors from Gold Rush, a honeycomb-spiked offering with dark fudge ripples, to Madagascar vanilla, will speak for itself. By May, Paul plans to open the doors, and the walk-up window, of his namesake shop, Westray’s Finest, at 214 N. Lombardy St.
“Something about ice cream to me was a way of saying, 'Screw it all,' ” the Midlothian native says. And while he may sound lackadaisical, it comes from a place of wanting a more modest, less cubicle-centric, and inherently fun business model.
Paul’s first foray into ice cream came while working for the New York-based Van Leeuwen, which was born from a food truck over 10 years ago and now has dozens of stores and pints at grocers across the country. The following summer, he landed in the kitchen of the small-batch, Brooklyn-born Oddfellows and began to dabble in ice cream-making.
“Before that I didn’t know how,” says Paul, an East Carolina University grad. “And since, it has kind of been a journey of trying to get away from a life that is non-enjoyable, I think.”
Attracted to the simplicity, it was while creating flavors and serving scoops that Paul began to envision launching his own venture, and he eventually enrolled in Penn State’s Ice Cream Short Course.
“I just kept repeating it, kind of speaking it to existence,” he says of the vision for his business. “It wasn’t really one turning on a switch, it was kind of like repeatedly saying, ‘I’m going to do this,’ and taking lots of little baby steps — and then you’ve taken enough baby steps [that] you’ve gone a surprisingly far distance.”
In a full-circle moment, when Paul saw the owners of Van Leeuwen were selling a truck, he reached out — he now has two trucks, which will continue to operate in addition to the soon-to-debut Fan parlor.
In 2015, he officially launched Westray’s Finest on four wheels, adopting a seasonal, nomadic lifestyle in his original wood-paneled truck. Slinging scoops — in flavors including Southern Maple Cornbread, Thai Tea and Dad’s Brown Butter Pecan — during the summer in Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia, Paul would retreat to Richmond in the cooler months to tend bar at Carytown's New York Deli. He began to gain a following, as well as catering jobs and wedding gigs. Last summer, the Westray’s Finest truck debuted in the Richmond area, a frequent vendor at the RVA Big Market at Bryan Park.
Paul says Westray’s is “meant to be fun,” and the shop’s mantra is “All best days.” Chances are, if you’ve visited his mobile concept, the brief interaction was memorable, thanks to a dad joke or a cone of Chocolate Glutton, Paul being a fan of the classic flavors.
“I don’t plan to be a culinary expert or anything, I just want to make things that are tasty and are delicious and people enjoy, and just create a business that is sort of approachable for people,” says Paul, who uses Richlands Dairy in his ice cream.
The ice cream menu will offer the cool treat by the scoop, in addition to sundaes, banana splits, floats and shakes. With a goal of landing pints such as the peanut butter and cookie-studded Cookie Clockout in freezer sections, Paul’s current focus is introducing himself and his product through this Lombardy Street outpost.
"For now, it's kind of about showing the community, what is Westray's Finest all about," he says. And as for settling on a permanent spot in Richmond and returning to his roots, he adds, “Richmond feels more cozy, more of a town to me. I already knew and felt that community here.”
Westray’s Finest will be open from 1 to 9 p.m. initially and then transition to 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., with coffee and pastry service available in the morning,
