Apple Pay, Gift Cards, and more

If you’ve been in the shop recently, you may have noticed a familiar white swivel stand at our cash register. That’s right, we’ve (finally) switched to Square as our POS provider.

Of course, even if you noticed, there’s a good chance you didn’t care, and that’s fine! But there are a few small ways in which this may affect our customers.

Contactless payment

We tried for a while to set this up with our old payment processor, and this is where I should insert some kind of gif of something jumping through a lot of hoops. But switching to Square made it easy for us to accept NFC-based contactless payment methods, including Apple Pay and Google Pay. It’s even built into some cards—look for the little contactless icon on the back. So if you have a contactless payment method, just tap away when you see the green light on our Square reader.

Physical Gift Cards

Since opening our shop in 2013, we’ve sold magnetic-stripe gift cards that you can load up in any amount. Fortunately, we had a record of all outstanding card balances. So when we switched to Square, we were able to transfer all that info into our account.

If you show up with an older card (from before July 15, 2019),  you’ll still be able to use it (thought we’ll have to type in the number instead of swiping). The only issue with old cards is checking your balance online using the URL on the back of the card. That’s our old processor’s site. Since they’re unaware of Square transactions, that site will record an inaccurate balance if your card has been used since we switched.

We’ve gotten a new batch of integrated cards from Square, so we’re still selling gift cards going forward! You can always find out the balance of an old or new card by bringing it in to our shop.

eGift Cards

Our Square account also allows you to purchase digital gift cards (the link takes you to our order page on Square’s site). eGift Cards are delivered via email—either immediately or at a later date of your choosing. This is a great option if you’re out of town and have a friend or relative in the Triangle who’s a fan of our ice cream.

Please note that because we can deliver digital gift cards, we don’t sell physical cards online or send them in the mail! Also, these digital cards can only be redeemed in person at our shop. This means they can’t be used for Special Orders (of ice cream cakes or gallon tubs), because we currently only accept special orders online. We may look into changing that in the future, but for now if you had a gift card that you hoped to redeem for a special order, we apologize for any inconvenience!

 

Ye Olde Holiday Hours Poste

The fall/winter holiday times are approaching, and all your favorite local businesses are choosing different days to close/reopen/etc. We’ve already added our closing dates to Yelp and Google Maps, and we’ll be printing signs for the door. But in case you missed it there, here’s all the info in one place.

Staff Party: Monday, November 12

We’re having a staff appreciation party on November 12, so we’ll be be closed for that whole day.

Thanksgiving

We’ll be closed Thanksgiving day (November 22nd). We’ll reopen Friday the 23rd with standard Friday hours.

Xmas/New Year

Our shortened Christmas Eve hours will be 2:00–8:00 pm. Then we’ll be closed Christmas Day through New Year’s day, reopening Wednesday, January 2, 2019.

Thanks again to everyone who’s enjoyed our ice cream (and coffee and cookies etc.) in 2018!

A big announcement for 2018

It’s a new year, and we’re looking to shake things up a bit at the olde ice cream shoppe. With that in mind, please forgive us for what we’re about to tell you.

 

…Are you ready? You might want to sit down.

 

We’re taking our Vietnamese Coffee ice cream off the menu. Now, before you get too upset, hear us out:

It’ll be back! Eventually. But more importantly, we plan to make a different coffee flavor for each month of 2018. This means we can work with lots more different local roasters, plan flavors we’ve been dreaming about for years, and have a little fun!

So, come in this week for our last run of Vietnamese Coffee…once it runs out, we’ll be introducing our first NEW coffee flavor, Coffee Toffee. Just in time for giving up your New Year’s resolutions, this ice cream will feature Bean Traders’ espresso blend and chopped Heath Bar pieces.

What’s your favorite coffee-flavored dessert? Let us know in the comments, and we’ll pick a random commenter to win a pint of Coffee Toffee!

2017 Holiday announcements

It’s true, we really don’t post a lot of “News” on our site! But we just need to make 2 quick announcements.

Holiday Closing

This winter, we’ll once again be closed again from Christmas Day to New Year’s Day, reopening on January 2nd. Mark your calendars accordingly!

Limited-time holiday special order items!

We have some new items you can order online for pickup December 20–24. There’s a new ice cream cake, and a variety pack of seasonal ice cream sandwiches.

Thanks again to all our customers and staff for another busy year! We hope you enjoy all your holiday treats!

Holiday closing, the return of flight night, and oh boy do we not blog much

Hello, friends! I’m sure you’ve noticed that we don’t make blog posts very often (or perhaps you didn’t notice, since, well, we don’t make blog posts very often.) But we’ve got news to share.

First:

We will be closed from December 23rd through January 1st, reopening on January 2nd. Get your gift cards and holiday pints soon!

Second:

Speaking of gifts: have you seen our new t-shirts? Or our tea tins and bagged coffee? And did we mention the gift cards? We’ve got a great selection of stocking stuffers this year! And if you haven’t tasted our new selection of teas from Art of Tea, come in and try a cup with a homemade pastry for $1 off this Saturday.

Third:

Since the weather was unseasonably warm this fall, we’re just now starting to plan this year’s flight nights. Our first flight night will be Monday, January 9th. Mr. and Mrs. Parlour are traveling back to Mrs. Parlour’s home island of Saba this Christmas, and we’ll be bringing back ingredients for a very special Caribbean-themed flight. We’ll update again with the menu and ticket link when we return from our trip!

And finally: eggnog ice cream goes on the menu this week! Made with spiced rum and Homeland Creamery nog. Happy holidays!

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Holiday Season News

It’s that time of year again, and we have a few quick updates to share.

Holiday Closings

Like many businesses, we’re going to be closed for part of the holiday season to make sure all of our staff have the opportunity for some time off. We have two closures to announce.

  1. We’ll be closed for the one day on Monday, December 14th for our staff party
  2. We’ll also close from December 24th to January 1st. We’ll reopen on January 2nd.

Please plan your ice cream eating accordingly! If you need to stock up on ice cream, we’ll be having another pint sale before the holiday closure (if you really need a lot, you can pre-order gallons right on our site).

Sufganiyot!

Sufganiyot!Hanukkah (we’re just going with Wikipedia’s spelling) will be here at sunset tonight, so once again we’re serving up Sufganiyot. No preorders this time; it’s first come, first served, while supplies last. We’ll have them today, Sunday, December 6th, and Tuesday, December 8th. The fillings are raspberry or quince jam. These are vegan!

Extra-exciting crossover news!

1449253572996Our friends from Runaway Clothes (the folks who brought you DURM apparel) are opening their own flagship retail shop right around the corner from us in early 2016. But if you want to browse their collection in person before the holidays, you can do it at The Parlour! They’ll be using part of our expanded dining room to set up a pop-up shop here December 10th–23rd! So you can stop by for ice cream and get some holiday gifts at the same time. Don’t forget to wash your hands before handling the merchandise!