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Spotty Dog Ice Cream Co. is located at 2416 Jefferson Ave.
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Spotty Dog offers scoops and sandwiches, with plans for shakes, sundaes and specials.
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Spotty Dog was designed with the vibe of old-school ice cream parlors in mind.
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Dining area inside Spotty Dog
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Art inside Spotty Dog
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The order counter and takeout window
Moving from a career in law to life as a frozen treat entrepreneur is not a typical path for someone who describes herself as a Type A personality, but Spotty Dog Ice Cream Co. co-owner Hannah Sager — who also describes herself as an ice cream fiend — is doing just that.
Over the weekend, Sager and her husband, Alex Miller, who works in advertising, introduced their homey New England-style ice cream parlor at 2416 Jefferson Ave., paying homage to sundaes and scoops of summer vacations past.
Adding to a growing corridor at the edge of Union Hill, Spotty Dog has been operating as a pop-up and selling its not-so-ordinary pints, in flavors including strawberry with candied fennel, and hosting pop-ups around the neighborhood for over four years, their first in the backyard of nearby shop Dear Neighbor.
“Pretty soon after I started law school, we started testing out ice cream flavors,” says Sager, a graduate of the University of Richmond School of Law. “It started as just a hobby and curiosity: ‘Let’s make it, we love it.’ ”
Inspired to share the wealth, the Church Hill residents, both 31, put flyers in neighbors’ mailboxes promoting free seasonal pints from pumpkin roll to chocolate-covered strawberry. Soon enough, their cool treats began to cause chatter.
As they casually accumulated a portfolio of recipes, as well as confidence in their product, Spotty Dog was officially established on April 20, 2018. The business is named after their dog, Mason, a food-motivated Australian shepherd with a speckled coat and an infatuation for ice cream.
Before moving to Richmond, “we lived above an old-school candy shop that stocked a lot of really good ice cream from New York shops, and we went very often. We would bring our dog and let him lick the cup after we were done,” Sager says. “When we were brainstorming names, it just fit.”
What also fit was weaving in nods to their childhood.
“We have a lot of just familial connections to New England, and a lot of our core nostalgic childhood memories are in New England, and that includes memories of eating ice cream,” Sager says. “Those are our favorite memories.”
With a clean and airy aesthetic featuring bright pops of orange, a Hershey’s ice cream sign and wooden booths, Spotty Dog is an ode to parlors of the past.
"We knew we wanted an eat-in parlor experience … places where people could cozy up, … friends and families, kind of harkening to those nostalgic ice cream moments that Alex and I shared growing up with our respective families,” Sager says.
A Northern Virginia native, Sager grew up going to Vermont each year on family vacations. Always on the itinerary: a visit to the Ben and Jerry’s factory, checking out the freezer case full of “rejects.” Miller and his family would frequent Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and an annual tradition was a visit to Sundae School, a no-frills shop specializing in the classic dessert.
Sager and Miller met in Boston while attending college, quickly bonding over a shared opinion of the superiority of Northern ice cream.
“Ice cream is so good in New England,” Sager says. “People assume that warm-weather places would have really high ice cream culture, but that’s really not the case. It’ll be freezing and a blizzard [in New England], and people will line up and eat ice cream.”
New England-style ice cream is defined by its high milk fat and low air content, resulting in an extremely creamy, dense, almost slightly tacky offering.
“You can almost take a bite out of it,” Sager says, noting that a higher fat content allows them to build more complex flavors.
Spotty Dog has produced a spectrum of flavors, from the flagship Madagascar malted vanilla to a chocolate milk and Cheez-It concoction — chocolate ice cream with a buttery, slightly sweet cheese-cracker crumble swirled throughout, created in response to a question on Instagram regarding late-night munchies. The ice cream shop toes the line between boundary-pushing and plain fun, with a reverence for the definitive flavors and textbook techniques of ice cream making.
For now, guests can expect 10 flavors at Spotty Dog, including favorites such as their salted chocolate chip cookie ice cream, in addition to a few seasonal options. Shakes are coming soon; Spotty Dog adopted the milkshake machine from the shuttered Union Hill shop and eatery Pomona. There will also be a focus on sundaes, from a classic version to tahini brownie with sesame caramel and miso whipped cream, or a mint-chocolate grasshopper rendition with freshly whipped cream and hot fudge. Spotty Dog will also offer made-to-order ice cream sandwiches, featuring an ice cream of choice paired with housemade cookies.
“Our classic sammie; it’s just it for me,” Sager says. “We have different versions, but the classic sammie is the salty chocolate chip cookie that goes into the ice cream and then our malted Madagascar [vanilla]. The way that that cookie freezes, it’s chewy still and tastes like the best version of a Chipwich, which is what I love.”
Speaking of throwback treats, for those still mourning the departure of longtime cold-case novelty Choco Tacos, a local version lives on: The Spotty Dog team plan to occasionally craft their pistachio-dusted waffle taco-ice cream hybrids.
"I love lowbrow treats because a lot of it is nostalgic, which is kind of what we’re pulling on anyway,” Sager says. “The Choco Tacos, it’s thinking of something that’s so bad but so good, you have memory tied to it and [are] making it a little elevated but keeping true to what it should be.”
After settling in at the new shop, Sager says they plan to make their own waffle cones, introduce ice cream cakes and expand their offerings.
Spotty Dog Ice Cream Co. is currently open from 2 to 8 p.m. Wednesday to Friday and from noon to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
