A pastry chef married a hospitality pro. Then they opened an ice cream stand.

Aug 7

Ask owners Leon Olds and Leah Champagne what makes Zellie's different, and they won't start with the ice cream.

"Hands down, it's the toppings," Leon said. "That's the creative part."

The menu itself is surprisingly simple. Vanilla, chocolate, and a rotating seasonal flavor. The rest changes constantly.

Brown butter graham crumbs. Honey-roasted peanut butter. Toasted croissant crunch. Fruit sauces made from scratch. Nearly every week, Leon and Leah introduce a new special inspired by the season, a local collaboration, or simply an ingredient they've been excited to use.

Leon, who helped open Solo Pane e Pasticceria in Bath, brings a pastry chef's background to the kitchen. Leah's experience is in hospitality. Together, they spent more than a year planning Zellie's before opening the neighborhood ice cream stand in May 2025.

"We're always trying to find ways to help people know the ingredients are really high quality," Leah said. "I think that's something that's different about Zellie's."

That attention extends well beyond the toppings. Zellie's sources its soft serve base from Kingdom Creamery in Vermont, then adds extra vanilla bean paste to its vanilla before building each sundae, cone or float around ingredients made in-house or sourced from neighboring businesses whenever possible.

The menu changes so often that regulars have come to expect something new every week.

"Our regulars expect something fun every week," Leah said. "We're going to have a bad weekend if we don't have something new."

Ironically, the best-selling item isn't one of those weekly specials.

"It's definitely vanilla," Leon said. "We can't take away the vanilla."

The stand itself is named after the couple's daughter, Valentina, whose pregnancy nickname—"Zellie"—became the business's name.

For Leah, that's fitting.

"It's so tied up in our family," she said. "We get to serve that community. It's fun that we can be a little bit foodie, but also very family."