Two Roosters Ice Cream, with wacky flavors, wants to open Raleigh shop

Since March, the owners of Two Roosters Ice Cream have been traveling around the Triangle serving treats with flavors such as Thai chili sauce, pizza and grilled cheese from a camper attached to an old Ford F-100 pickup truck.

Now Jared Plummer and his wife, Kelsey, are looking for a permanent space in Raleigh to set up shop for their unique business.

“Ice cream is like a canvas,” said Plummer, 33. “There’s room in Raleigh to have incredible, different, eclectic ice cream.”

The Plummers sell classic ice cream flavors, adding a unique twist if possible. They add a cream honey ripple, made from Vintage Bee honey in Raleigh, to strawberry ice cream.

But their off-the-wall flavors are enticing to adventurous eaters. Plummer created pizza-flavored ice cream last year for a food truck rodeo in Durham as an ode to the Pie Pushers food truck. He steeped pizza crust in a base mix overnight and added onion powder, tomato and other ingredients.

The Two Roosters Ice Cream truck is a hit with customers, and it’s also popular with other food businesses in the Triangle. Some collaborate with the Plummers for ice cream flavors.

Tea lovers can try Blackberry Royale, a flavor infused with hibiscus leaves from Tin Roof Teas, a shop in Cameron Village.

Customers with a major sweet tooth can order scoops of ice cream with chunks of sticky buns from Yellow Dog Bakery in Raleigh.

For the second annual NeighBREWhood party at Raleigh Brewing on July 23, Two Roosters made a beer-caramel ice cream using chocolate from GerDan Chocolates, a North Raleigh company known for its use of spirits.

Plummer grew up in Stokesdale, northwest of Greensboro in Guilford County. He spent many Sunday afternoons at his grandmother’s house making homemade ice cream with a hand-crank machine, rock salt and ice chips. Two black wooden roosters perched on the front porch.

After graduating from N.C. State University and taking a job in finance, Plummer felt unsure of what he wanted to do with his life.

He was visiting a friend when he noticed an old-fashioned ice cream maker on a garage shelf. It was similar to the machine his grandmother had used.

He began thinking about the memories ice cream evoked for him and started experimenting with flavors, making ice cream for family, friends and dinner parties.

“It became an obsession,” Plummer said.

In 2011, he traveled to New York City to train with Malcolm Stogo, who he calls “the godfather of ice cream.” Stogo is the founder and president of Ice Cream University, the author of numerous books about ice cream and the inventor of the chocolate-dipped waffle cone, according to his website.

Plummer met ice cream makers across the United States and worked for free in New York City, Salt Lake City and Philadelphia, making ice cream and learning the tools of the trade.

He enjoyed the creativity of making ice cream but feared leaving his stable job to try his hand at entrepreneurship.

“It’s a challenge to just go for it,” Plummer said. “You don’t know what the response is going to be.”

It took an extra push from his wife, who told him he had to stop talking about ice cream or start a business.

So he bought a 1965 truck on Craisglist and a vintage trailer, had both repainted and started traveling around the Triangle. The truck can’t travel far, and Plummer said he has had to turn down requests from across North Carolina.

In addition to giving customers a place to visit every day of the week, a brick-and-mortar store would also provide more space to experiment with flavors, Plummer said. Currently, Two Roosters operates out of The Cookery, a culinary incubator in Durham.

Plummer hopes to feature eight to 10 standard flavors and four to five rotating flavors at the permanent location. One of his dreams is to create monthly menus based on events or seasonal produce. In February, for example, he wants to partner with local chocolatiers to serve chocolate-inspired flavors.

While most of his wacky flavor experiments have been successful, he’s still perfecting buttermilk corn and cornbread, an ice cream inspired by his mother’s homemade cornbread.

“It’s a work in progress,” Plummer said.

This story was originally published July 28, 2016 at 10:39 AM with the headline "Two Roosters Ice Cream, with wacky flavors, wants to open Raleigh shop."