Kate Bhatia hangs a big neon sign in her production facility that reads, “It’s not about the ice cream.”

“It could be anything — like we could be making lemonade or tea, anything — but for us, in our mission statement it says ‘Ice cream is the means to an end,’ where ‘the end’ is connection, joy and real change,” Bhatia said.

Bhatia is the founder of Grey Duck Ice Cream, a company that began wheeling its frozen desserts around Bend on a tricycle in June and held a grand opening for its permanent location at The Pantry on Newport Avenue in December.

The mercantile shop has jars upon jars of dried goods lining the shelves, cast iron pans affixed to the walls and a small pink disco ball hanging in the front window. By moving into the space, the ice cream shop has joined forces with vegan food cart A Broken Angel, micro-bakery Mill Fire Baking and small-batch brewery Funky Fauna Artisan Ales’ Doom Lounge.

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Ice cream for odd ducks

The Grey Duck offers everything from classic flavors to “odd duck” flavors such as Earl Grey Cookie (the bestseller), key lime pie and cookies and cream cheese, according to its website.

Flavors are constantly in flux at the whims of Bhatia’s inspiration.

And while Bhatia could be making lemonade or tea, she describes her decision to make ice cream as selfish.

“I just really love ice cream. I grew up eating ice cream. Whenever (my husband and I) travel, we seek out ice cream. A lot of our flavors are inspired by memorable desserts that I found traveling our experiences that I’ve had,” she said.

On a recent trip to India, Bhatia said she sipped on an incredible turmeric latte, so she recently developed a golden milk flavor that will debut this week.

Last month, Valentine’s Day-inspired flavors included Hearts on Fire with cinnamon hearts melted into a sweet cream base and Shuga’ Shuga’ Cookie, an ice cream blended with tangy buttermilk to emulate the nostalgia of grocery store sugar cookies.

Earl Grey cookie ice cream

The Earl Grey cookie was easily the most satisfying of the four flavors I tried in the ice cream flight ($14). It had the distinct floral and lemony flavor of its tea blend namesake with an unmistakable taste of Fruit Loops at the same time. Cookie crumbles are mixed into the Earl Grey cookie ice cream and the tea is brewed with Bend’s Metolius Tea.

Bhatia recently introduced ice cream flights to make it easy for customers to try multiple flavors. Four mini scoops are dolloped into a plastic tray divided into four spaces and topped with waffle chips, a freshly-made waffle cone cut into four triangles.

After requesting a flight filled with birthday cake, dairy-free coffee chocolate chip, Fudge It All and Earl Grey Cookie, ice cream scooper and production employee Olivea Haun asked if I’d like waffle chips made with original or red velvet batter, to which my answer was obviously red velvet.

Fair wages and facilitating connections

A scoop costs $6 in a cup, $7.50 in a cone and it’s $14 for an ice cream flight. Those prices may shock some, but Bhatia is anything but shy about the fair wages she pays her employees.

“My hope is that we get big enough in this humble little ice cream venture that we are actually able to start to have enough sway to work through policy issues,” she said.

Until then, Bhatia will continue scooping for the simple pleasures of facilitating connections and bringing people joy.

“It’s just a really creative and crafty way for me to take my passion and use it to make things,” she said.

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“It could be anything — like we could be making lemonade or tea, anything — but for us, in our mission statement it says ‘ice cream is the means to an end,’ where ‘the end’ is connection, joy and real change.”

— Kate Bhatia, founder of Grey Duck Ice Cream