A Visit to The Museum of Ice Cream, Los Angeles

The Museum of Ice Cream recently opened in Los Angeles, after a sold out run in New York City. The art installation is full of things that you can eat, smell and/or touch, all with an ice cream theme. Naturally, I couldn’t wait to go and made a reservation for tickets as soon as one was available. The Museum – which is only in town for a couple of months – is located in a bubble gum pink warehouse in the Downtown LA Arts District. Reservations were available in 30 minute intervals, but even smaller groups were let in every 5 minutes or so to ensure that the rooms weren’t too crowded.

The hosts at the main doors got the kids in the group hyped up, but I think that the exhibit was geared more towards food-loving and nostalgic adults who wanted to see a Willy Wonka-style ice cream playland – and take plenty of pictures of it. Each room was full of things you could interact with, whether they could be eaten (ice cream samples), smelled (banana-scented wallpaper) or played with (giant gummy bears and an ice cream sandwich swing). It was a blast, from start to finish.

Each room within the exhibit had a theme. For instance, a California room featured popular local ice cream company McConnell’s Ice Cream samples. There was also a mint chip “grow house” where fresh mint was growing in soil that contained cacao shells and a sherbert room was bursting with rainbow pastel colors. The popsicle room was a highlight for me, but the sprinkle pool is what inspired most visitors to make the trip

The pool was filled with rainbow sprinkles that you could splash, swim and float in. The sprinkles, fortunately, were made of plastic so that they didn’t bleed food coloring onto any clothes or get sticky after all the visitors. It was an experience you sure can’t find anywhere else!

Overall, the museum is a lot of fun and well worth a visit if you can get a reservation before they move out of town, but you can get a great idea of what it was like just from the pictures, so I’ll leave you with a few more of my favorites.

More Pictures, from top to bottom: Tasty wall art; Calling the Ice Cream Hotline (wait for instructions,then scream); Cookie Dough Ice Cream Cones; The Popsicle Room