The Hop West — Restaurant in Asheville

The Hop West is an Ice Cream Shop in West Asheville off Haywood Road with specialty vegan and non-vegan ice creams, ice cream cakes, vegan brownie sundaes, ice cream by the scoop, pints and quarts to go, floats, hot chocolate and more.

There’s street parking, as well as a pay lot off Dunwell that’s only $2/hr (I suggest brining cash, it’s pretty challenging to shove a bag of $200 pennies in those tiny slots).

I accidentally drove to the main creamery on the other side of West Asheville (which is presumably where they actually make the ice creams), but remembered I’d seen the storefront before right by Biscuit Head last time I was at their West Asheville local for brunch. If you’re not familiar with the area - and your GPS continuously sends you on wild goose chases; I’d suggest just plugging the numbers in directly, to avoid any confusion.

I had been following The Hop West on IG for quite some time - and was really curious about the CBD ice cream that they have, but every time I ingest any type of cannabanoids I start to think that farm animals are talking to me. And, I start talking to farm animals - which is a bit troubling considering I don’t live on (or anywhere near) a farm.

Although - I hear CBD is (actually) a non hallucinogen and great for PTSD, etc.

Speaking of animals - the inside of The Hop is super cute; with bright colored walls and adorable, whimsical paintings of bears and other woodland creatures mid-dance holding sundaes and cakes and fun stuff like that. Since it’s getting kinda chilly - it’s the perfect laid back place to sit back, relax and enjoy some sweets and stay warm.

I had a Vegan Brownie Sundae which is a 100% vegan (yasss!) ice cream dessert. It comes with your choice of two scoops of ice cream (I ordered one scoop of Cranberry Orange Habanero - the other a scoop of Cardamom Coconut Crema) on top of a (chewy) Vegan Brownie, drizzled with Chocolate Syrup, sprinkled with Peanuts, a large dollup of Coconut Whipped Cream, and topped with a Maraschino Cherry. The sundae was huge, to say the least - definitely enough to split. I was on a solo date, and couldn’t finish it all myself, so the nice gals working there were kind enough to give me a container to tote my leftover brownie home in.

After you enjoy your Ice Cream, I suggest stopping the gift shop “Instant Karma West”, that’s just a couple doors down. They have a zillion fun things like candles, incense, CBD stuff, and mini spirit animal sculptures. Unfortunately they didn’t have my spirit animal (a depressed seahorse), but I did buy like $80...

Gosh, I really wanted to love this place. We came in from out of town and asked a local where to go for ice cream and they recommended The Hop. I was excited because they had more non-dairy options than most ice cream shops but unfortunately the flavor was pretty lacking. I got the cookies and cream and the fudge brownie and it honestly kind of tasted like the Lacroix of ice cream. It was like I was eating, frozen Oatmilk with a hint of cookie flavor or fudge. Unfortunately, it was pretty underwhelming. Where I’m from we have a ridiculously good non-dairy ice cream shop called Off-track, and maybe it isn’t fair to compare them to that place but it’s just hard not to when you’ve had exceptionally good vegan ice cream. This place wasn’t awful but wasn’t great either and for the price it was a bit...

I've always been a big fan and supporter of the Hop. However, I feel it's needed to share my most recent experience at the West Asheville location Saturday, April 30th. There were two young guys and a young lady working, in which the two guys had their hair pulled up. The young lady had long hair and it was not pulled up in a hat or pony tail. Her hair was almost touching the inside of the ice cream container when scooping. A loose hair or anything could have fallen into the ice cream, which is unsanitary. I am not sure what the employee requirements are but I would suggest that whoever has long hair, they are required to pull it up in a hat or pony tail holder. This is the first time I have ever seen this happen at the Hop and I hope that next time I...