Font ResizePark City » Shawn McLennan is probably the first ski resort instructor ever to tell students to go ahead and eat the Yellow Snow.
That's what he calls his own brand of ice cream that he's been making with a six-quart White Mountain ice and salt home mixer for the past seven or eight years.
"My uncle made ice cream and I loved it every time," he said.
Now the recipes he's famous for among friends and snowboarding students are available to everyone at Yellow Snow Ice Cream and Coffee on Sidewinder Drive in Prospector.
Friend Alley Hemphill said he was well known on the slopes for bringing his home-made concoctions to share and test. The Yellow Snow shop has been churning in his imagination for years, she said. Anyone around town who knows him usually refers to him as "the ice cream guy."
McLennan uses the same high-end machine used by gelato makers. His case offers 14 flavors of ice cream and seven sorbets. The machine requires a two-step mixing process, heating and pasteurizing the milk before it's frozen. That infuses the flavors unlike traditional machines. Because the process is designed for gelato and sorbet, his ice cream has less air in it than mainstream brands, producing a thicker, creamier product.
The fruit for the sorbet is mostly from the local Farmer's Market and he doesn't see a reason to keep caffeine and ice cream separate. He sells a Chai Tea ice cream, a Full Throttle
shots in the mix.
It opens at 6 a.m. and offers everything a regular coffee shop does including pastries.
Ice cream and coffee may seem like a strange combination, but they complement one another really well, he said. Many of the same flavors are used for both, the mixing of them is actually quite similar, and by the time someone is done craving the one, it's the right time of day to crave the other.
Open until midnight, Yellow Snow wants to become a venue for live music especially that performed by people excluded from traditional venues like minors in night clubs starting at about 4 p.m.
He has Wii games, two flatscreen televisions and ample chairs and couches for lounging around.
McLennan designed his store to be a place where people can come in, sit down and relax. So many Park City eateries feel cramped, he said.
"Bring the whole family, bring the whole sports team. Sit down, you don't have to eat in the car," he said.
His walls are yellow and black. For decoration, he has a mural of his logo painted by Hemphill, as well as the work of local artists. The yellow and black make the work pop out to the eye, making Yellow Snow one of the best showcase for art work in the city, he said. Any artist is welcome to pitch him for space, and he hopes to showcase some local high school students as well.
He confesses that the name Yellow Snow was controversial when he presented it to his entrepreneurship class at the University of Utah.
"I've called it that for years and people don't look at it as something gross, they look at it as something funny," he said.
One professor really didn't know what to think.
She approached him once said that she'd shared the idea with several people and most said they liked it, but others shared her concerns.
"I said, 'You just told a bunch of people about my business that doesn't even exist yet.' Those people will have already heard of me when I open," McLennan recalls.
Whether or not someone likes it, they're going to remember it, he said.
"I wouldn't get away with it if weren't in Park City. It's ski-town humor," he added.
McLennan has been working the entire hours of the store from 6 a.m. to midnight to prepare for the grand opening on Aug. 8, but said he didn't open the shop to give himself a job.
"My feeling is that I should create a staff that can run it entirely without me. My job is to bring people to the store," he said.
Just as he did on ski slopes, McLennan said people should watch for him handing out sample cups and coupons.
Hemphill said she met McLennan when they were both working in a coffee shop and used to visit his home to try new flavors.
"The most appealing thing to me is how excited he was about this place," she said. "It's so much better than processed ice cream."
Andrew Hinks works nearby in Prospector and came in for an iced drink on Wednesday. He said he's excited to finally have a coffee shop in the neighborhood.
"Freakin' good coffee, good looking ice cream and it's much closer," he said.
Yellow Snow Ice Cream and Coffee
2015 Sidewinder Drive
