ST. LOUIS — A local boutique ice cream chain is quickly expanding, with plans to add over two dozen more parlors.
Clementine’s Ice Cream announced this week that it will open its first Kansas City area location in a few months and has plans to grow to 40 shops in the Midwest over the next five years.
“Ice cream is more than just a treat — it’s about creating joy and connection,” founder and CEO Tamara Keefe said in a press release. “When we started to ship our ice cream nationally, we saw the desire for other communities to have their own Clementine’s parlor. We’re thrilled to start that process by bringing our handcrafted ice cream to new markets and joining the Kansas City community.”
The Kansas City store, located in the suburb of Prairie Village, will be in a former dessert shop and is slated to open in September or October. It will feature the “naughty” and creative ice cream flavors that Clementine’s is known for, like boozy banana rum, carrot cake, vegan lemon poppyseed and gooey butter cake.
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The micro-creamery plans to open eight stores in Kansas City, four in Arkansas and one in St. Louis’ Creve Coeur. A store in Bentonville, Arkansas is set to open in September or October and the Creve Coeur parlor is planned for 2026.
Currently, the Clementine’s has eight St. Louis-area locations and ships pints of ice cream across the country, thanks to its 25,000 square-foot production facility in the city’s Baden neighborhood.
In 2015, Keefe started the ice cream business after investing her life savings and leaving her corporate job. She was recently named Missouri’s 2025 Small Business Person of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Post-Dispatch photographers capture hundreds of images each week; here’s a glimpse at the week of April 20, 2025. Video edited by Jenna Jones.
