Dedicated ice cream shops in the Mile Square City are surprisingly hard to come by outside of major chains like Ben & Jerry’s or Cold Stone Creamery, but the former Downtown home of The Little Grocery should soon be serving cold treats for the summer months.

Signage has gone up at 214 Jefferson Street for Thomas’ Ice Cream Café, who are renovating the ground floor retail condominium at the property. The space was apparently sold at the end of May for $345,000, but it’s not apparent who exactly purchased the premises.

Thomas’ Ice Cream Café has set up a website and announced they will be serving homemade, artisanal ice cream along with coffee, desserts, flatbreads, and pizzas. They claim a “gourmet New York City chef” will be behind the flatbreads and tout their experienced team that’s worked in the food industry for over 10 years.

Ownership of Thomas’ Ice Cream Cafe can be traced to a business called Hudson Gastropub LLC, which is the corporate entity behind West Village restaurant The Warren. The eatery has an unlikely owner in New York gastroenterologist Prem Chattoo, who opened the restaurant in 2016 and earned a profile from the New York Daily News. Chattoo looks like he will be opening his Hoboken ice cream venture sometime during the next week.

While the business doesn’t have any listed details of their treats and is a bit of an enigma for now, an ice cream shop, especially one located on Hoboken’s west side, certainly fills a void in the community. Hours at Thomas’ Ice Cream Café will run from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. on weekends.

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