Nite Creamery — Restaurant in Santa Maria

Nite Creamery ice cream has the consistency of a very thick milk shake. There are no signs of ice crystals or other artifacts to interfere with the buttery smooth creaminess. Make no mistake, the ice cream is delicious. They have a small menu selection and ice cream combinations.

Nite Creamery’s business practice fills a “made-to-order” ice cream niche. There are no colorful or eye pleasing tubs of ice cream behind a glass display case like other traditional ice cream shops. Your ice cream is made to order with the use of liquid nitrogen. This approach takes time, therefore, you have to wait. You may wait up to 10 minutes or longer if it is busy. For light entertainment, find a spot in the small seating area with a direct view of their ice cream making process. Sometimes puffs of white condensate billow and pour over the counter top creating an environment typically not associated with an ice cream shop, but with a medical cryogenic lab handling human samples and body parts. The business name had me thinking it served ice cream floats, shakes, and other traditional ice cream favorites.

The decor resembles a cross breed of a deli and coffee shop attempting to attract a trendy crowd. Although, I enjoyed the comfy pillows in the seating areas, customers tend to use the pillows as napkins. The cloth seating and pillows are stained with ice cream and dirt so we sat elsewhere because of the visual turn off. My recommendation to the owner is to wash the cloth seating areas regularly. Use the hard seating surfaces instead. At least that can be wiped clean.

The additional work of their made-to-order ice cream making process may be the reason a small scoop of ice cream is expensive, but delicious. Nite Creamery believes it is...

First timer here. The kids were looking for some good ice cream in the area, and we were looking for something different than our usual fro-yo style favorites. Nite Creamery was a unique experience!

As others have mentioned, ordering was done via a self-service kiosk. I typically love this style of ordering, especially when there are pictures of the product and I can see exactly what I'm getting, but they only have one station so I felt a lot of pressure to "hurry up" and order when a few patrons arrived in a line behind our family. It would probably help to know in advance what you'd like to get, versus browsing some of the options.

The price is $5.99 for a single basic scoop. Portion size is quite small. Just keep that in mind. I'm not sure if this price point is typical for this area, but it felt expensive to us.

The ice cream itself was excellent. Very rich and creamy texture. We tried the PB Nutella, Flintstones, Roast Malone and Strawberry -- all were very tasty!

The shop itself is small. There are some long built in benches along the wall and in the middle, but no tables. Overall atmosphere felt more like a grab n go, versus a place to sit and enjoy.

Overall, a fun experience to try something new. The ice cream texture is what really stuck out to me...

4 stars because the service was very no sociable; there was no excitement or communication from the staff, other than welcome. At least a little smile but nothing, I get sometimes we feel down but I believe strongly in the customer service and just putting up a face while at any job. It was like machines were working and we were just there. There’s one dairy free option, didn’t try it. The chocolate chip nite puff was really delicious, I haven’t had anything similar to it before which was a very nice new experience. For my first experience with nitrogen I say was very exciting for me, and got me to smile and enjoy the show. There’s no cashier you just show up order and pay for the ones that don’t like any interaction at all, I mean this is THE place. Very simple setting, no comfortable sitting, so I just ordered and went to the car. For me the staff and environment wasn’t too welcoming for me to stay and enjoy it. But definitely recommend you try the nite puff. Worth to at least try it and determine if you have a better experience and would love to go back again. For me, I might go back but might not, the nite puff is worth going back but the service is enough to make me...