Ice cream shop co-owner Lindsay Schweiss said she was approached by T & K Events, a local florist/decorator with rentals who was impacted by the decrease in the number of weddings lately due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so the business owners decided to open up together.

A variety of fresh flowers from T & K Events are for sale in the front of MN EIS, located at 10 Minnesota St. N.

Schweiss said a number of customers walked into her ice cream shop when it opened at 11 a.m. Friday. Store hours for this weekend are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 13 and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 14.

She said plans now are to open the business daily in March or April.

MnEis features a variety of bulk candy as well as ice cream products

Schweiss talked about how the store opened briefly last year, only to be shut down due to pandemic executive orders from Gov. Tim Walz.

“Our first season was definitely a whirlwind,” she said. “We felt so blessed to be welcomed into the downtown community. We really felt the support of folks in New Ulm and the surrounding area.”

Schweiss said the goal of the business was to provide an experience that felt normal and happy.

“We feel we were able to accomplish that last year,” she said.

Last year, MN EIS offered 24 ice cream flavors on rotation, homemade waffle cones, edible cookie dough, and 30 candy varieties including sea salt caramel.

Menu items included “spaghetti ice,” a German sundae that looks like spaghetti, but includes ice cream with strawberry toppings and white, chocolate flakes.

New ice cream flavors this year include:

• “This Just Got Serious” with smooth, salted caramel ice cream with rich sea salt fudge and salted cashews.

• “Zanzibar Chocolate” with chocolate ice cream made with three kinds of cocoa for a fudge brownie taste.

• “Heaps of Love” with Oreos, brownies, cookie dough, pecans, caramel, and chocolate ripples all packed into vanilla ice cream.

• “PB Hearts Chocolate” with creamy peanut butter ice cream with swirls of chocolate ripple and peanut butter cups.

• “Moo-taco” a taco-shaped, homemade cone with your choice of cookie dough, eis cream, whip cream, chocolate drizzle and sprinkles.

• Malts and floats.

• Many candy varieties to sprinkle on ice cream.

• Cookie dough in cupcake-sized servings.

• Rock candy.

• T-shirts.

Customers ate inside or got ice cream and sweets to go.

A rotation of other homemade treats included fudge, cookies, cupcakes and other choices.

“We continue to expand our premium, edible cookie dough offerings which are great on their own, or added to your favorite ice cream,” she said. “Something new we started late last season, and will continue to offer this year is Boba Tea (aka Bubble Tea). We have a wide variety of fruit and milk tea flavors. This is something new and different you typically find only in larger cities.”

Schweiss said the business is also exploring the idea of adding ice cream cakes for 2021.

“Hopefully, we’ll be able to open in March. We’ll be open daily in summer,” she said. “A big thank you to New Ulm for all the love and support. We can’t wait to start serving everyone again this spring.”

(Fritz Busch can be emailed at fbusch@nujournal.com).