Novel Ice Cream is going back to school!
The ice cream shop is opening a location at Grand Canyon University’s 33oo. W. Camelback Road Joshua South campus, according to an Instagram post. Novel is expected to open the shop by December 2025.
Novel Ice Cream first opened in March 2017, with Shawn Allard purchasing the shop in 2023. The shop has become extremely popular for its texture-driven small, batch handcrafted ice creams. Instead of dozens of flavors, the shop focuses on eight core ice creams (Bourbon Toffee Caramel Crunch, Cookie Monster, Madagascar Vanilla, Chocolate, Straight Up Strawberry, Butter Pecan, Honey Lavender, and PB Wasted), two rotating flavors, and two dairy- and gluten-free sorbets. Each flavor is developed by an ice cream chef, using the best ingredients free of additives or processed stabilizing. That attention to detail has been noticed. This year, Novel was ranked the country’s best ice cream by Yelp.
Novel is also known for its ice cream-stuffed doughnuts — a raised glazed doughnut filled with ice cream and a topping, then pressed until it’s warn on the outside, and cool on the inside.
Currently, there are two locations of Novel Ice Cream (Downtown Phoenix and Downtown Mesa), along with an ice cream truck. The campus shop will mark the third with more on the way.
