Here’s the scoop about Al Roker. Harlem’s Sugar Hill Creamery plans to roll out a flavor dedicated to the popular “Today” show weatherman.
Nick Larsen, who co-owns the ice cream shop with his wife, Petrushka Bazin Larsen, said the idea came to him when the couple did an interview with Roker for a show for the Peacock network.
After learning that the 68-year-old SUNY Oswego alum’s favorite desserts are cookies and cream ice cream and sweet potato pie, Sugar Hill crafted the “Your Neck of the Woods” flavor (a nod to Roker’s famous slogan). The Queens-born Roker has been delivering weather news from New York City since 1983.
The ice cream is a variation of cookies and cream with vanilla wafers, Oreos and a sweet potato custard ribboned throughout the ice cream with graham cracker pecan crust.
“What we love about Al is he is precisely the same person when we met with him as he has been for the 20-plus years seeing him on our television, super genuine, funny and inquisitive,” Larsen said.
With a mission to bring a family-owned ice cream parlor back to Harlem, they exceeded their initial Kickstarter campaign goals in 2017, and the brand has now grown into three locations around the city.
Before Sugar Hill established its roots at 184 Malcolm X Blvd., Thomforde’s Ice Cream Parlor — founded in 1903 — served the upper Manhattan hamlet for eight decades before shuttering in 1983.
