Fifty Licks Ice Cream — Restaurant in Portland

I'm trying to remember how long I have been loving Fifty Licks ice cream. I think it might have been when they first opened, since I have a photo in 2010 of their Red Bull Cola Ice Cream, I wrote in the captions that the Stumptown Coffee and Tahitian Vanilla were excellent, and was particularly loving the bacon bit parts of their Maple Bacon.

I called it then "wonderful shake-ups to normal ice cream." Even though coffee and vanilla sound plain, they were bursting with flavor, and you could notice and appreciate the high quality ingredients. I like how the French custard style makes their product so creamy and soft.

Recently (this past August), they opened up a brick and mortar location at 2021 SE Clinton at 21st, just down a door from St. Jack, and also easily walkable from SE Division or Powell if the other offerings on SE Clinton aren't enough options. This sounds like a PERFECT end of a dinner for me. They are just a cute, clean crisp little bright spot.

It turns out the Fifty Licks is more than just an Ice Cream Parlor. Besides offering the following ice cream flavors and sorbets. You can also get Fifty Licks sorbet cocktails and Cafe Cubano. So it can be your stop before and after dinner!

They have twelve rotating flavors of scooped ice creams and sorbets. The flavors will continually be updated/rotated, based on what mad genius comes to fruition for the Fifty Licks imagination + execution testing! All you need to know is that Chad is a mad genius, and you cannot go wrong with any flavor you pick.

Example ice cream flavors for instance might include (remember these will rotate based on seasonal ingredients/new ideas!):

Stumptown Coffee Tahitian Vanilla Toasted Milk Jasmine Tea with Apricot Caramelized Apple Cherry Bourbon Jasmine Rice with Fragrant Pandan Raspberry Blood Orange Screamscle Maple with Bacon Single Malt Scotch

Sorbet flavors for instance might include:

Coconut Lemon Saffron Passionfruit with Sichuan Peppercorns Grapefruit with Rosewater Rhode Island Style Frozen Lemonade Chocolate with Toasted Oat Milk

You can select a gluten-free waffle cone, and toppings such as Ghost Pepper salt, bee pollen, sweet corn dust, potato chips, Ovaltine, who knows what they might have!

They do not have a liquor license or full bar (since that would require them serving food, which is more than this little ice cream parlor can handle in their space), but the few cocktails they do offer are so exquisite and I'm not sure why you would want anything else. These are so sophisticated I don't know why they aren't currently on a Bon Appétit or Saveur cover, they are so beautiful. On the other hand, maybe by June of next year, they will be... They offer a happy hour on their sorbet cocktails from...

Such a unique spot! We have Salt & Straw in Seattle so I didn't want to go there on my visit to Portland. Other ice cream spots around here closed relatively early (read: earlier), so Fifty Licks was up next. After I saw their flavors on the website, I was intrigued. I do wish they had sampling because there were so many different flavors I wanted to try. Overall, it's a lighter take on ice cream with less sugar (or less sweetness).

I wanted to try the flavors I don't see as often but was afraid I might dislike them. So ultimately I opted for 1 safety and 3 new flavors. My safety flavor was my bread and butter, Strawberry Cheesecake, my go-to. I enjoyed it a bunch as the cheesecake was able to shine. The sweetness of the ice cream was mild as to not overwhelm my entire cup and that allowed the flavor of the cheesecake to pop. I would definitely order this again, likely a pint.

Next came the French Toast. It was a mild vanilla flavor with bits of toast. Nothing too surprising, but once again the sweetness was held back. The toast bits were fluffy but ultimately not a huge factor as they lacked any further substance. The maple cinnamon flavor wasn't relevant at all. Likely wouldn't order this again, but it's worth trying.

Then there was the Blondie vs Brownie. The base ice cream was simply vanilla with yet again, a laid back flavor. Alongside that, there were extremely tiny bits of brownies and blondies. Blondies are essentially the vanilla equivalent of a brownie - a bit less common so wanted to just point that out. Honestly, it was like eating vanilla ice cream with tiny bits of cake integrated but those cake pieces were way too minuscule to be relevant. Did not care for this flavor altogether, wouldn't really recommend it.

Lastly, the Thai Rice was interesting! It was super light and reminded me of rice cake. This was probably my favorite flavor as it took such a simple flavor and elevated it to greater heights. Slightly nutty and not at all what I expected. It's not like eating rice and the flavor actually makes somewhat sense. Highly recommend...

We found this wonderful gem of a spot randomly while driving through SE Portland. We had no clue It was a ice cream place, but we seen somebody walk out of there.Eating ice cream and we were like yo. It's super hot and we got two really annoying kids in the back seat, screaming for something. we may just have figure this all out. Parking was limited in the neighborhood.So we drove around until we found a place pretty close by. We took the walk and made it to the building and sure enough.They had ice cream. Walking in, we were greeted by two individuals with smiling faces.Ready to serve us up with the best ice cream they had. I asked the gentleman behind the counter what his 2 favorite ice cream flavors were. I don't remember what he said, but I told him I'd take it. The wife got two flavors, something about honeybutter cornbread or whatnot. The kids were weird, and they just got two plain vanilla.... Like who orders vanilla.. When you have fifty flavors to choose from or whatever it was.... if I were a kid, I would have went for chocolate over vanilla... but the little weirdos, like their ice cream, too. I would highly recommend this place. It was a little bit spending, but the ingredients in their ice cream are nothing but the best. The people behind the camera were really nice and they moved to extremely fast. The lady behind the counter had a very nice smile...... my wife already wants to return! Haha...