Cream & Cones

On Pelham Parkway, tucked into a small storefront unit, Cream & Cones has become a go-to stop for families and dessert lovers looking for something more hands-on than a scoop shop standard. The shop describes itself as family-owned, built around the idea of bringing people together over sweet treats and happy moments. The signature draw is rolled ice cream, made fresh to order on a frozen cold plate right in front of customers, with a choice of base, from classic chocolate and vanilla to a dairy-free vanilla for a dollar fifty more, plus mix-ins and toppings that let every order come out a little different.

The rolled ice cream menu runs two directions. Eighteen preset combinations do the deciding for you, with names like American Monkey (banana and Nutella), Black & White (built around Oreos), First Kiss (strawberry and Nutella), Love In Paris (Ferrero Rocher and Nutella), Berrylicious, Butter Pecan, and Strawberry Cheesecake. For anyone who would rather build their own, the shop offers roughly 32 mix-ins to choose from, split across fruits like banana, strawberry, cherry, and mixed berry; syrups from caramel to raspberry; spreads including Nutella, cookie butter, and almond butter; candy add-ins like Reese’s Cups, KitKats, and Butterfinger; and extras such as brownie bits, cookie dough, sprinkles, and shot flavors like coffee, peanut butter, and cake batter.

Beyond the rolled ice cream, the menu covers familiar scoop-shop ground with real range: 36 flavors of hand-dipped ice cream in small, regular, large, or pint sizes, served in a cake cone, sugar cone, waffle cone, waffle bowl, cookie cone, or gluten-free cake cone, with split cones and waffle boats for anyone who cannot decide on one. Sundaes go well past the basic hot fudge version, though that classic is on the menu too, with a Brownie Sundae, a Cheesecake Sundae, a Cookies & Cream Sundae topped with a Hershey’s cookies and cream bar, a full Banana Split, and a Cotton Candy Burrito, three scoops wrapped in a shell of spun cotton candy and topped with Fruity Pebbles.

Flavor rotation is part of the shop’s identity, with Cookies & Cream and Cotton Candy sitting alongside more adventurous options like Brown Butter Bourbon Truffle and Cappuccino Crunch, giving regulars a reason to try something new rather than defaulting to the same order every visit. Shaved ice comes in 12-ounce and 16-ounce cups, with flavor options that include Blue Cotton Candy, Blue Raspberry, Cherry, Grape, Green Apple, Peaches & Cream, Pineapple, Raspberry, Strawberry, and Tigers Blood, and can be topped with a scoop of ice cream or a splash of sweet cream or sour spray. A specialty section brings in funnel cakes, a mini funnel cake sundae, milkshakes, soda floats, a chocolate chip cookie sandwich, and chocolate- or vanilla-dipped Oreos for anyone looking for something a little different from a straightforward cone.

The shop is not exclusively about dessert, either. A short savory menu of burgers gives Cream & Cones some staying power as a casual meal stop, not just an after-dinner destination, which matters in a Pelham Parkway retail corridor where foot traffic tends to be practical and errand-driven rather than leisurely. The atmosphere inside is clean and comfortable, with an emphasis on friendly, attentive service that keeps families and kids’ birthday groups coming back. Custom birthday cakes are available too, a detail that rounds out the shop’s role as a family gathering spot beyond the counter-service treats, and both digital and in-store gift cards make it an easy stop for a last-minute treat.

Hours stretch late on weekends, open until midnight on Fridays and until midnight on Saturdays as well, which sets Cream & Cones apart from many dessert shops that close early. That later schedule makes it a natural stop after a movie or a ballgame at one of Pelham’s nearby sports complexes, and it has helped the shop build a following well beyond the typical after-school ice cream crowd. For a town sandwiched between larger commercial corridors in Hoover and Alabaster, Cream & Cones offers something distinctly its own: an independent, family-run dessert stop that treats a scoop of ice cream as worth doing right.