Photo by Kamp Fender.
Patrons of Big Spoon Creamery in Edgewood enjoy cones and cups during peak hours after dinner. The creamery, at 927 Oxmoor Road, opened Feb. 1 as the Birmingham metro area’s second location.
Ryan and Geri-Martha O’Hara have come a long way in the past five years.
In 2014, the couple began selling ice cream in their driveway. Today, the Big Spoon Creamery owners oversee a pair of brick-and-mortar stores, including one at 927 Oxmoor Road that opened Feb. 1.
“We looked in Homewood when we were looking for our first location, but we never found the right spot,” Ryan O’Hara said. “It’s always a place we were really interested in and really wanted to be.”
The O’Haras opened their first storefront in Avondale in spring 2017 and have since done a booming business. When they began to ponder expansion, they were drawn to the Edgewood space they now occupy.
They signed a lease last summer and completed extensive renovations throughout the fall ahead of their opening.
“When this opportunity came up, we jumped on it,” Ryan O’Hara said.
Big Spoon produces all of its ice cream at its Avondale location and then transports it to Edgewood. The creamery sells ice cream by the scoop — in cups or waffle cones — along with ice cream sandwiches, banana splits, milkshakes and malts.
All menu items are made from scratch.
“We take a lot of pride in our products, and we use really high-quality ingredients, whether it’s local berries, local mint, local basil, you know, things like that,” Ryan O’Hara said.
Big Spoon’s flavors include traditional staples such as vanilla bean, dark chocolate and cookies ’n cream, in addition to more unique offerings such as Girl Scout Samoa and Lime Yuzu Pie.
But the store’s signature flavor, available exclusively in Edgewood, is Fruity Pebbles.
“We wanted to do that as a fun thing and something that may give people a little motivation to come visit the new shop,” Ryan O’Hara said.
Also highlighting the menu is the creamery’s namesake creation, The Big Spoon. It consists of two dark chocolate brownies topped with two scoops of vanilla ice cream, malted fudge, salted caramel, whipped cream, cherries and candied hazelnuts.
It costs $12, while a smaller version — aptly named The Little Spoon — costs $8.
“That’s not like an everyday kind of item,” Ryan O’Hara said of The Big Spoon. “That’s like when you want to go big, or maybe you want to share with somebody, or maybe you’re celebrating something.”
The name Big Spoon ties back to Ryan O’Hara’s childhood. Whenever he visited his grandparents’ rural Alabama lake house, he ate ice cream at many meals. He never waffled when choosing his utensil.
“I always wanted to go for the biggest spoon in the drawer,” he said.
Big Spoon patrons can now do the same. Ryan O’Hara said he wants his shop to become a community pillar that is known for its tasty treats and customer service.
“We want to serve people in an awesome way and give them something that they can be excited about in the community,” he said.
Big Spoon is open Sunday to Thursday from noon-9 p.m. and Friday to Saturday fromnoon-10 p.m. For more information, visit bigspooncreamery.com.
