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Serendipity Homemade Ice Cream to open in The Grove

Beckie Jacobs' second location will open at 4400 Manchester, across from Urban Chestnut Brewing Co., on the ground floor of Gateway Lofts, a new multi-use apartment building.

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For readers new to town (or with short memories), Beckie Jacobs opened Serendipity Homemade Ice Cream in a charming Webster Groves storefront (8130 Big Bend) in 2003. Eighteen years later, she’s finally opening store No. 2.

“I’ve looked into expanding on and off over the years,” she says, “and The Grove has continued to grow and expand, too, especially now, with all the new housing being built and the lack of an ice cream shop in the area."

“I have to admit the Gills [landlords and partners Amy and Amrit Gill [of Restoration St. Louis] made the decision for me,” she adds. “I never had such a great opportunity before.”

The new location is a 2,000-square-foot corner space on the ground floor of Gateway Lofts, a mixed-use, 60-unit apartment project developed by the Gills at 4400 Manchester (at Newstead).

The Grove location allows for more ice cream production space, an additional dip cabinet, and expanded hours. "We were maxed out in Webster, so we can now move the production space to The Grove," she says, "which will allow us to pursue more off-premise accounts, some of which we lost during the pandemic."

Since the demographic is different in The Grove, the business model will shift accordingly. "We're more in an entertainment district now, with housing all around us," she explains.

Part of the plan is to roll out a "coffee-to-cocktails" program, which means opening earlier in the day (for coffee and light pastries) and staying open later at night (with a "small but mighty" cocktail list and more dessert offerings). "There are times you just want something close to home, at the beginning or end of the day," she says. The decor will also be "something befitting the neighborhood," she says.

Over the years, Serendipity in Webster Groves has become known for its variety of homemade ice cream flavors, sundaes, toppings, shakes, malts, floats, as well as more esoteric options such as bite-size bon bons, spirited (boozy) shakes, and ice cream novelties (think Waffle Nachos, Dipstix, and Dipity Dough create-your-own ice cream sandwiches cradled by a cookie, brownie, or glazed donut).

Local restaurants also took notice over time. “When chefs like Vince Bommarito of Tony’s and people that I really think hung the moon started calling me to put my ice cream on their menus, that’s when I knew I was doing good things,” Jacobs told SLM in 2011. Restaurant requests for exotic flavors followed, which Jacobs called “Leap of Faith” flavors inside Serendipity.

She was an early supporter of National Ice Cream for Breakfast Day, often creating breakfast-themed flavors—Maple Bacon Crunch, Saturday Morning Cartoons, and French Toast Crunch, for example—for the occasion. Guests arriving in their jammies received a Serendipity mug filled with coffee, tea, hot cocoa…or an alcoholic beverage (Irish coffee, anyone?) for an additional charge.

In 2016, Serendipity acquired the Fire & Ice Cream food truck (a vintage 1946 Ford fire truck), which makes appearances at 9 Mile Garden and Food Truck Fridays in Tower Grove Park, and can be rented for private, corporate, and personal events.

Jacobs continues to remain active in the community, having organized fundraisers for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri, and most recently, local charities Pedal the Cause and Gateway to Hope.

This month, Jacobs will be riding on Teri Griege 's Powered by Hope bicycling team to help find a cure for cancer, and Serendipity customers can participate in the effort. For every sundae sold in September, Jacobs will donate $1–$2 to Pedal the Cause; for every specialty shake sold in October, $1 will be donated to Gateway To Hope. Ride on.