The Sweet Life Starts at Sugar Hill Creamery

On Malcolm X Boulevard in the heart of Harlem, children hold their parents hand in one hand, and use the other to juggle a cone topped with dripping ice cream; lines form around buckets of ice cream; and New Yorkers walk — sunglasses on, smiles out —taking a lick of creamy, velvety scoops of goodness. At Sugar Hill Creamery, ice cream is just the beginning of a cool, sweet, and blissful dessert journey.

Owned by couple Petrushka Bazin Larsen and Nick Larsen, since 2017, Sugar Hill Creamery has delighted New Yorkers and tourists with it’s charming roots, irresistible flavors, and comedic flavor names. For Petrushka, it’s original location on Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem, a historically Black neighborhood in New York City, has served as a source of sweetness, sure, but also as an example of the culture and creativity that exists in the storied area.

“We really wanted to bring something special to an area we really love,” said Petrushka. 

Petrushka and Nick may not have started in the ice cream business, but their love of the classic dessert dates back to both of their upbringings. For Petrushka, memories of her mom taking her across the Calvert Street Bridge in Washington, D.C., more formally known as the Duke Ellington Memorial Bridge, to enter the nearby Baskin Robbins, got the ball rolling. The bubblegum flavor, and the mother-daughter quality time, is what kept them coming back.

“It was like having a mommy-daughter date,” Petrushka recalls. “She would let me get two scoops — sometimes she really let live! And I would get a bubblegum flavor that had gum inside. So I would eat the ice cream. And then, you know, save the gum to the end. They also had a Daiquiri ice cream flavor that I loved so much. Those are my earliest memories of just being able to spend one-on-one time with my mom and then get this treat sometimes. Sometimes she would let me have it before dinner. Really. She was fun,” Petrushka recalls, laughing.

Nick, who grew up in a rural, farmland area in Iowa, has memories of a Schwan’s truck coming by weekly to bring groceries, as well as large tubs of sherbet to the area. The tubs of sherbet from Nick’s upbringing and the Baskin Robbin memories from Petrushka’s has laid the foundation for Sugar Hill’s ice cream flavors, which are rooted in life experiences, and a general respect for the craft.

“Ice cream is awesome, it’s something so many people love,” said Petrushka. “Why not celebrate that?” 

The duo’s varying professional backgrounds connected through their love and appreciation for the frozen treat. Petrushka came from a background in nonprofit work and arts management, with a career that includes roles at the vice president of programming and education at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, and an educator at the Studio Museum of Harlem. Nick, on the other hand has a background in hospitality. The co-owner worked in restaurants in front-of-house roles, and as a general manager. He wanted to open his own restaurant, and with the support of Petrushka, enrolled at The International Culinary Center (ICC), formerly The French Culinary Institute (FCI) in SoHo. Though he went with the intention of opening a restaurant, after meeting friends and gaining more experience, the goal changed. The couple lived in Harlem already, and realized that there wasn’t a place with good, homemade ice cream.

“Sometimes in life, we are not pushed to vision, because we can get stuck in the monotony of life,” said Petrushka. “And we’re surviving and doing things that are interesting, but maybe not pushing ourselves. And so this was like one of those moments where we were forced to do that visioning.”

“And so this was like one of those moments where we were forced to do that visioning.”

Recognizing the need for an original ice cream shop in Harlem, there were cost benefits, too. Since they didn’t have to build out a full kitchen, an ice cream shop cost less to construct and operate. With the local need for the treat, and the professional possibilities, the shop felt like a no brainer.

“It seemed like it could be a good situation, and literally that is how the staff was conceived because there was a need,” said Petrushka.

Petrushka knew the local needs well. Though was born in D.C., she was raised in NYC, and spent most of her adulthood in Harlem and even lived in Sugar Hill, a historic neighborhood in Harlem for which the ice cream shop is named. Opening the shop in a neighborhood that’s meant so much in her life is a professional dream come true. She and Nick, parents of three kids, have raised their family in the neighborhood, and have come to have a deep connection with the community while navigating the ever-changing world of being business-owning parents.

“I always jokingly say that when you have your first child or your first store, you’re exerting as much energy as possible into their lives or into that shop,” said Nick. “And then when you have two or three children or two or three stores, you’re just dividing it. You don’t have more energy, essentially, they’re just getting less attention,” Nick continued jokingly. “Every day, I just try to get through the day.”