Sophie Webb
Located on the corner of North College Avenue and Walnut Street, Edison’s Ice Cream opened July 21. The company aims to serve ice cream that’s accessible to everyone — including those who are lactose intolerant — while also bringing the community closer together.
With a line seemingly always out the door and a charming, retro-inspired atmosphere, newly opened Edison’s Ice Cream may be close to solidifying itself as a Fort Collins staple.
Replacing a Starbucks location beneath the historic Northern Hotel in Old Town, Edison’s moved in earlier this year and had a grand opening May 3-4. The opening went so well that the shop was closed the following Tuesday to replenish its supply, an Instagram post stated.
“Edison’s will be closed on Tuesday, May 6 to give our team a much-needed day to recharge and get ahead on production,” the post reads.
Since opening, Edison’s has been a hit throughout Fort Collins. With a focus on inclusivity and making ice cream accessible and enjoyable for all, Edison’s has come to fill a gap in the Fort Collins ice cream scene. Owner and founder Nate Frary began Edison’s both out of a love for ice cream and a desire to make sure ice cream could be enjoyed by those with dietary restrictions. The end result is that the entire shop is gluten-free and has a variety of nondairy flavors.
“(We) have a rock star team that cares a ton,” Frary said. “That’s just important to me (that) people know that it’s locally made, and there’s a lot of care.”
What began as an ice cream cart was transformed into a full shop over the course of 2024. Frary, who owns numerous Dutch Bros Coffee locations throughout Northern Colorado, wanted to have an ice cream cart at a Dutch Bros event. The timing didn’t work out, but the cart presented itself as an opportunity to gain feedback from customers and keep refining recipes.
“All of the problems that a business would dream of having is what we’ve had.” -Nate Frary, Edison’s Ice Cream founder.
Julianna Follon, the business development director of Edison’s, previously worked with Frary at Dutch Bros.
“The most fun part is just being able to, like, start completely from scratch and be like, ‘What do we want this to look like?’” Follon said. “What has actually come to fruition is a lot better than we actually, like, really ever pictured. So that’s been super awesome just to see how, like, receptive the community has been and how excited people have been.”
Kenzie Freeman, the shop manager, discussed the location and how the proximity of the shop lends itself to a wide variety of customers along with some regulars, too.
“That’s a really fun part of the location, too, is that we have, like, a lot of regulars now that are just, like, our neighbors right upstairs,” Freeman said.
The team is already working on expanding, specifically with another location in Greeley, Colorado.
“We’re like early, early stages, but we have a space we’ve picked and are working with our team to try to get something going, and ideally we would open kind of around the same time, in April, in downtown Greeley,” Frary said. “For me, the idea is to scale something to kind of build, like a cool brand that people can look forward to.”
With another location in the works, its 12 unique flavors and original cart available for booking, Edison’s is showing no sign of slowing down.
“We literally, like, couldn’t make enough ice cream,” Frary said. “There (were) multiple Sundays that, when we closed, we only had like three flavors left because we sold out of everything. So it’s been really cool and fun but very chaotic. But, you know, all of the problems that a business would dream of having is what we’ve had. So the reception has been really cool.”
Reach Aubree Miller at life@collegian.com or on social media @aubreem07.