Summer has officially arrived, and the temperatures are quickly heating up. There is no wrong time of day or night to eat ice cream in its full glory this time of year.
Tucked in an alley on 83 East Center Street, a small homemade Mexican-style ice cream shop named “La Michoacana Artisan” opened its doors in September 2022. Customers are greeted by vibrant pink colors and a simple store layout with almost too many options for your tastebuds to explore.
The variety of Mexican-style treats and flavors makes the La Michoacana shop unique. A family team—Nutthakitta Boonbumrung, originally from Thailand, and Misael Ordonez, from Mexico—own the shop, and have called Moab home for 15 years.
“Seeing the smile on people’s faces when they try the ice cream and enjoy it” is their favorite part of owning the business, they said, and they enjoy providing a refreshing treat for all.
Boonbumrung and Ordonez also own Moab Treasures, a gift shop located on Center Street. They quickly realized they could use the space behind the gift shop on the same property, and there was “no need to look for a new spot.”
In the past, Ordonez would experiment with popsicle recipes at home and sell them to co-workers at his former place of employment at Red Cliffs Lodge. His brother had experience in restaurants and provided valuable input on recipes, fruits, and making ice cream and other treats. The owners come up with new ideas for flavors and delights in their heads and then put their skills to the test as they taste and try out the new items in the shop.
“Our customer base is 50% locals and 50% tourists,” Ordonez said. He is pleased with the great support from locals, especially the nearby business owners on Center Street.
“My family often comes here together, and the ice cream is homemade, delicious, and really good,” said Linda Figueroa Cruz, a Moab local. “The mangonada cups and fruit juices are my favorite.”
La Michoacana’s top sellers are the blackberry ice cream mixed with Mexican-style cheese and the mangonada drink, according to Ordonez. The mangonada drink has a mango non-dairy ice cream base swirled with chamoy sauce and topped with fresh mango chunks and a tamarind stick.
As for ice cream, unique flavors include Thai tea, matcha green tea brownie, sweet corn blackberry lechera, and chocolate abuelita. If you’re looking for something else, there’s always the more traditional Oreo, vanilla, and chocolate ice cream to fall back on, plus 13 other flavors that rotate often. For the non-dairy crowd, a good selection of items is also available that are made with a vegan heavy cream-like base. Ordonez describes the ice cream as not being super creamy or super sweet.
“It’s right in the middle and lighter in texture so that you can enjoy one or two scoops fully,” he said.
Milkshakes, smoothies, and fruit drinks are also offered. Ice popsicles come in fun and unique flavors, such as cucumber jicama, walnut, rice pudding, and tamarind. The mango chamoy popsicle is a saucy treat with flavors of salty, sweet, sour, and spiced with chilis.
A special menu of creative concoctions include jicaletas (flavored jicama on a stick), esquites (Mexican street corn in a cup), and gansito cups. Gansito is a Mexican snack cake, described as “a strawberry-flavored jelly and crème-filled cake with chocolate-flavored coating.” Tostilocos, another option at La Michoacana, is a popular Mexican treat that consists of a varied mix of ingredients that usually includes Tostitos or Doritos tortilla chips (in the latter case, they’re called Dorilocos), topped with cueritos (pork skins), cucumber, jícama, lime juice, hot sauce, cheese, chamoy, and chili powder.
Making homemade ice cream from scratch is no easy feat, as Boonbumrung and Ordonez make it at night, and it takes about 35 minutes per flavor. “We buy about seven gallons of milk daily and use only fresh fruit ingredients,” Ordonez said.
If you are looking for a non-traditional ice cream shop, be sure to stop at La Michoacana Artisan to satisfy your sweet tooth. Enjoy an ice cream cone while sitting in their small outside seating area, watching the world of Moab drift by on a beautiful summer day.
The shop is open all year, every day of the week, from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m.
This local business column is made possible with the support of the Grand County Economic Development Department, which strives to create a diverse economy, support local businesses, and improve the quality of life for Grand County’s current and future residents.
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