Salt & Straw Co-Founder Tyler Malek on Turkey Ice Cream, Community, & the new Phoenix location
In this Q&A with Salt & Straw co-founder Tyler Malek, learn about the brand’s origins, why it’s all about community, and the new Phoenix location.
Salt & Straw is one of the most recognizable ice cream brands in the United States. What started out as a pushcart in Portland, Oregon, back in 2011 has blossomed into an iconic company with 50 locations across the country. The Midtown Phoenix location just opened in Uptown Plaza this past Friday, and we attended a media preview prior to the public opening of the brand’s third Arizona location. We tried out many of Salt & Straw’s flavors—including the savory, funky flavors the brand is known for, like the turkey stuffing and cranberry sauce—and got to talk to one of the co-founders of Salt & Straw, Tyler Malek. In this Q&A, learn more about the company’s origins, the flavor that Malek eats the most, and why Salt & Straw seeks to be a community gathering place above all.
Why did you originally decide to expand into the Arizona market?
Tyler Malek: Well, we started in Portland, Oregon. My cousin [Kim Malek] and I started the company in 2011; we’re almost 15 years old. And honestly, our dream was to open one ice cream shop at this neighborhood place. What we found is that as we opened our doors and brought more people in, we were creating these flavors, stories, and experiences at Salt & Straw that we felt were really profound. We’ve been coining terms over the last 15 years around the idea of customers coming in and getting this moment of full-face attention, where you put your phone away, look your server in the eye, talk about ice cream, and learn about the food from around your neighborhood. So, our fourth location ever was in downtown L.A., and we, of course, love the sun. L.A. is home away from home. And as we’ve slowly grown, I think Arizona became just such an obvious next step. Even just coming here and learning about the food scene—we’re slowly becoming friends with chefs and seeing a lot of these amazing restaurants opening up. We got this really exciting thrill of what you can do with food. I think we weren’t necessarily planning on opening in Arizona, but the team over down in Gilbert at Agritopia—they built this center, and they were so dedicated to only having local brands, and they reached out to us, and we were like, “Well, we’re not local. You know that, right?” It was interesting because they appreciated our perspective on flavors, how we bring in local partners and ingredients, and our focus on storytelling. They said Salt & Straw still feels local, even in the Phoenix area, and so we kind of fell in love with that idea, and they sweet-talked us into moving down here. This is our third location here in Arizona. I think there’s a level of adventure, adventurousness in all of our customers. This idea of being able to tell these stories and appreciate this level of hospitality that we’re doing. It’s really fun. It’s one of my favorite cities now to be in.
Why did you open at this location specifically?
I think for us, it feels like there are a lot of restaurants slowly opening up here. We’re really close to the team over at Shake Shack. We take a lot of guidance from them, as well as Flower Child and Culinary Dropout—we love seeing this growth of food and being able to be part of it. I think this region felt really important to us as we’re growing. We like to be right next to our brethren. Shake Shack was a big one.
Anything you want to say about the local flavor you released in collaboration with Chef Lawrence Smith from Chilte? Smith’s flavor is a mole de novia with brown-butter plantains.
We met maybe just over two years ago. We were actually both working on a project with Taco Bell separately, which is kind of weird that they brought us together, but we became friends and have been ever since. We text flavor ideas back and forth over the past two years, and are just constantly brainstorming. When we were getting ready to open this new shop, I was like, I gotta reach out. So, what’s cool with him is just everything about his flavors and the way he integrates textures; it’s so profound. I think every time I’m working with him, it’s just hanging out. He’s always got jars of something. He’s like, “Taste this. Taste this. Taste this.” It’s everything you expect from this mad scientist chef. It’s just one of my favorite things because I’ve just got this intense curiosity. When we started working together, he gave me a list. We brainstormed a list of maybe 10 different ice creams. This is one of his recipes, and we made a couple of adjustments. We took the garlic out, for example. And I think we got his blessing, but cooking that down with plantain and creating this flavor that I think is really fun—kind of something you wouldn’t expect from an ice cream. It has just a little bit of unexpected spice, the tartness from that green plantain.
Is there anything you want to tell people about Salt & Straw just in general?
What our bread and butter is that we change our menu every month. On the first Friday of every month, we launch a new menu. It’s always new, and it’s always something based on a seasonality of either the food around us or that zeitgeist of the moment. And so right now, this is one of my favorite menus, because it’s November, so of course, it’s Thanksgiving. We’re gonna taste through a five-course tasting menu, through ice cream of Thanksgiving. Turkey ice cream has to be on the menu, so we put turkey into a beautiful bread pudding and added a cranberry sauce. So, I think for us, it’s kind of creating this sense of creativity through our ice cream and not being too serious about it, but also integrating these flavors and foods and ingredients from the regions that we’re in in really unique ways. And I think ultimately, it’s about how, as a customer, you’re probably gonna still get the salted caramel and the cookie dough (it’s my favorite!). But I think for me, the idea of coming in and tasting and being able to spend half an hour, 45 minutes, just hanging out in an ice cream shop, learning about the flavors and tasting ingredients. And turkey ice cream is, in a way, a little scary, but also really kind of fun. It becomes this event for people, and we find that’s exactly what Salt & Straw is for our guests. It’s less the ice cream and more this idea of a community gathering place to hang out with your friends. And maybe you don’t want to go get cocktails tonight. You want to just kind of talk about and hang out around ice cream, tasting turkey, rolls, and cranberry sauce.
Is there anything you want to say about your success? Why do you think so many people have become big fans of Salt & Straw?
This is our fiftieth location. My cousin and I are still in the kitchen every day making ice cream. We still make it all in the same way that we were doing it, even with one location. We run our own shops. We didn’t want to start diluting or creating a cookie-cutter model with the company. As we’ve grown over 15 years, we wanted to create this sense of place and intentionality. And so, I think we’re just really kind of excited and proud as we continue to grow, creating something generational for our food community.
You said your favorite flavor is cookie dough. Why is that?
Actually, I should amend that. My edit is that I would say I eat the most cookie dough. What flavor I eat the most is always the cookie dough, but depending on the month, my favorite is always one of the seasonals. So right now, it’s the pumpkin pie tiramisu, which is basically just a pumpkin spice latte. But we were like, let’s take it up one level by adding a cakey element with the tiramisu. Then next month we go into the holidays. Christmas is my favorite. So next month, we’ll bring back my grandma’s recipe for almond brittle, which we make into ice cream. We also just launched an ice cream cake.
Is there anything you want people to know about you, either personally or professionally?
It’s a funny question. I don’t like to talk about myself. So, we started as a pushcart in Portland, and I went to culinary school for savory cooking. So, I was fresh out of culinary school and contemplating this idea that we talk a lot about—collaborations and partnering with chefs, farms, and artisan food brands. And the reality is, I think there’s something about that being so ingrained in the food community and in the chef community. This is my bread and butter. So, I think you see a lot of that through the ice cream. The dream was always to integrate the idea of fine dining into an ice cream shop.
Is there anything you want to say about the savory flavors? People tend to think of ice cream as only being sweet.
The best way to say it is that salts will amplify all flavors. And so even salted caramel, depending on how you twist your brain, could be considered kind of a savory ice cream. And for us, the huge unlock, this is actually one of the first recipes I ever wrote, is our sea salt with caramel ribbons. And the trick is we salt the sweet cream. So, you’re getting this like the salt in the sweet cream, it blows up, and you taste all of the milk. This is mostly California and Oregon farm milk, and it’s just got this rich intensity to it. And then the orange caramel just kind of drizzles through.
Is there anything new on the horizon that people should be aware of?
If you get a chance, you should taste the Tacolate. It’s been so fun. It’s been my life goal for 10 years to figure out how to recreate this [the Salt & Straw take on the discontinued Choco Taco]. That’s just been profound for us to make. It’s really kind of a special next step for us.
Are there any new flavors you can share with us?
I’m really excited for the holiday menu coming up. It’s one of my favorites. Like I said, I fell in love with cooking for making cookies during Christmas with my grandma, you know? So that’s where I learned to make almond brittle when I was eight. That was probably the first recipe I really learned. Her molasses cookies, which she called crybaby cookies. There’s a swath of recipes that we’re pulling out for December that I think is probably one of the most delicious menus of the year because it’s just so soul-warming. And then in January, we’ve got a whole menu of seasonal flavors that are all vegan. Five new vegan flavors just for the month. Also, I think we finally unlocked how to do a pistachio milk ice cream. It’s so, so good.
Why should someone visit Salt & Straw?
I kind of alluded to this. This idea of when you come in, you’ll find yourself spending way more time than you thought. And we actually designed the whole space and staffing to really create this moment of hospitality. A lot of people come in and spend 15, 20, or 30 minutes just hanging out, talking, and tasting flavors. So, it becomes something a little bit bigger. Like I said, it should almost feel like going out to a nice restaurant.
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