Ice Cream & Dessert
A Steveston Village counter serving homemade ice cream by the scoop a couple of blocks from the water. It shares a building with another independent ice cream shop, which makes tasting your way between the two an easy afternoon detour.
Leave the car towards the Garry Point end and walk in. That one decision saves twenty minutes of circling on a hot Saturday, and Steveston is small enough that the walk costs almost nothing. The village fills from late morning through the afternoon in July, and queues down here are long at every counter rather than at any one of them.
Ice cream and this village go together for obvious reasons. The boardwalk and the fishing dock pull everyone down to the water, the return leg feels uphill even where it is not, and a scoop is the natural punctuation. Homemade in this category means small batch and made on site, which is a real distinction from the tubs a general store buys in by the case.
Second Avenue is the calmer street. Moncton gets the crowds and the storefronts people photograph, and one block up you find the shops locals actually use. The difference is a single block and it is obvious the moment you turn the corner.
Seasonality is the thing to plan around. This is a summer category in a summer village, and Steveston contracts hard in winter: shorter days, far fewer people, a good number of doors shut for stretches of it. In July you can safely assume everybody is open and everybody is busy, which is its own kind of information.
In the Steveston neighbourhood of Richmond.
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Other ice cream and dessert shops and nearby businesses in the Richmond directory.
A gelato and dessert shop on Moncton Street in the middle of Steveston Village, and a fairly recent addition to the strip. Cases of gelato by the scoop plus other sweets, positioned squarely for the summer walk-up crowd off the boardwalk.
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A Steveston Landing gelato parlour making small-batch Italian gelato in house from fresh local ingredients, alongside frozen yogurt. Classic flavours sit beside originals, and the waterfront location is why the line stretches on summer evenings.
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A Second Avenue scoop shop in Steveston Village with a broad range of ice cream and sorbet including local makers, plus bubble waffles, bubble tea and shakes. Picnic tables outside, prices below the tourist strip, and open until 9pm in summer.
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A walk-up treat shop at the corner of Third Avenue and Bayview serving soft serve, flavoured slushes and the two swirled together. Cheap and fast, and positioned exactly where you want it after walking the Steveston boardwalk past the cannery.
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A Steveston gelato shop churning artisanal batches in house with Asian-leaning flavours such as Uji matcha, Hong Kong milk tea and espresso, plus mango yuzu and strawberry rose sorbetto. The owner trained in Italy; there are dairy-free options too.
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A small scoop shop off Blundell Road making its own ice cream in rotating batches, leaning Asian with black sesame, Thai milk tea, Vietnamese coffee and ube. No seating and no free samples, but the ice cream is dense and pints travel home well.
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From the blog
Longer reads from the editor, with the places worth a detour linked inside them.
A third of Richmond BC is still farmland and the food shows it. Where to buy at the farm gate, why the Steveston market is not every Sunday, how to buy spot prawns off the boats at the wharf, when the cranberry bogs flood, and the everyday greengrocers I actually shop at.
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Garry Point is the best sunset in Richmond BC and one of the worst places in the city to be underdressed. A Steveston local's guide to arriving before the lot fills, the Kuno Garden, the fishermen's memorial, the wind, and which season is actually the good one.
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The Night Market's final season is the loud story. The quieter one: free admission at the Cannery ends Monday, Britannia keeps summer hours through Sunday, and Steveston does sunsets better than anyone.
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