Ice cream shop coming to Paso Robles’ hip Tin City

Paso Robles’ hippest industrial park is getting a sweet new tenant: ice cream maker Negranti Creamery.

The Paso Robles company, which specializes in ice cream made from fresh sheep’s milk, plans to open a scoop shop and production plant in Tin City later this summer, Negranti Creamery founder and CEO Alexis Negranti said. The complex, located off Highway 101 on the southern edge of town, is already home to BarrelHouse Brewing Co., Tin City Cider Co., Wine Shine distillery and several wineries.

“It’s such a good neighborhood,” Negranti said. “I feel like ice cream’s a good fit.”

Founded in 2011, Negranti Creamery produces almost 4,000 gallons of ice cream a year using milk from its own pasture-raised flock in Lemoore. (Sheep’s milk ice cream has less fat than traditional cow’s milk ice cream or gelato, and is easier for people with lactose intolerance issues to digest.)

Pints of Negranti Creamery ice cream in flavors such as strawberry basil, salted brown sugar and black coffee are available via its ice cream truck and sold at more than 100 retailers; only one, General Store Paso Robles, sells the company’s ice cream sandwiches.

Negranti said the move to Tin City, located a couple blocks from Negranti Creamery’s current Ramada Drive location, will allow the company to open a storefront for the first time while ramping up production significantly. The creamery will go from five part-time employees to 10, and take its production manager from part-time to full-time, she said.

In addition, Negranti Creamery, which produces cow’s milk ice cream for Harmony Valley Creamery, will add cow’s milk ice cream to its own menu plus vegan treats. Ice cream sandwiches and gourmet ice cream cakes will also be sold at the scoop shop, which will be open Thursday through Sunday.

“We’ll have a whole new lineup,” Negranti said, and a wealth of new flavors.

Negranti said developer Mike English invited Negranti Creamery to join Tin City in November 2016. Construction on the company’s new digs “really ramped up in early 2017,” she said.

Atascadero architect Robert Fisher designed the industrial-looking structure, which has a corrugated metal roof and walls, Negranti said, adding that she is handling the interior design.

She declined to disclose financial information about the company, including its investment in its Tin City location.

This story was originally published July 7, 2017 at 4:06 PM with the headline "Ice cream shop coming to Paso Robles’ hip Tin City."