'We're finally here': Love Boat opens new location in Cape Coral
The long wait is over for Brian Borst and ice cream-loving Cape Coral residents.
Love Boat finally opened Jan. 5, at the corner of Pine Island Road and Del Prado Boulevard.
“We’ve been trying to open here for a year and a half,” Borst, the owner of the beloved homemade ice cream shops, said. “Cape Coral has been asking, hoping for us to be here. We’re finally here.”
Love Boat joins Crumbl Cookies, First Watch, Mission BBQ and Firehouse Subs in the bustling Cape Coral Commons plaza.
Borst cited supply chain issues post-COVID and post-Hurricane Ian as a big reason for the delay.
“We were really hoping to open sooner,” he said. “We had big plans to cover the front of the store in wrapping paper the week before Christmas and unveil it.”
The Cape store is Borst’s fifth location since buying the iconic Love Boat on San Carlos Boulevard in Fort Myers in July 2014.
It’s flourished ever since.
He opened Love Boat’s second location on Sanibel in 2015. Three years after moving from the original 1,000-square-foot building that opened in 1967 as Love’s Ice Cream to a larger store just down San Carlos Boulevard in 2017, he opened a third spot at Village Walk on Dani Drive in Fort Myers. The downtown Fort Myers location followed in 2022.
Despite the tremendous growth, it’s still a family-run business that follows the original recipes Love Boat is known for.
“We don’t want to be a Ben & Jerry’s,” he said. “We will continue to hand spin these recipes. We see a lot of the same loyal customers who don’t want us to change. We hear the stories of how their parents took them here or how they came here on their first date. A couple came every year on their anniversary since Love Boat first opened.”
One sweet menu
Customers come for cups, hand-dipped cones, banana splits, specialty sundaes — think Reese’s, brownie batter, s’mores — plus shakes, malts, floats and more filled with premium homemade ice cream in dozens of seasonal and classic flavors.
“Right now we have 75 to 85 flavors here,” Borst said of the Cape Coral inventory. “We’re just pulling the seasonal ones.”
Best-selling flavors “change like the weather.”
“Production-wise vanilla and chocolate are the tops,” Borst said. “Butter pecan, mint chocolate chip, cookie dough always do well. Brownie batter too and s’mores that we added.”
While recipes are original, some have been reformulated.
“We’ve removed some dyes,” Borst said. “The red velvet used to be red. It’s white now with no food coloring. Pistachio ice cream isn’t green and banana is not yellow.”
Customers also create their own flavor combinations.
“Someone told me if you mix chocolate and orange creamsicle, it tastes like a Tootsie Roll," Borst said. “It really does. And coconut and black raspberry will taste like a Raspberry Zinger.”
Flavors in the Cape store (which include sorbets, low-fat, sugar-free and low-fat sugar-free) are listed on a huge board to the left as you enter. Work your way down the long bank of freezers to place your order.
The shiny and new dining room is awash in pink and blue. A large walk-in freezer in the back holds about 1,500 two-gallon containers of ice cream.
More Love Boats coming
You may be seeing more fabulous flavors and Love Boats around soon.
“We are now registered with the state of Florida to sell franchises,” he said. “But we’ve always said we won’t give up production of the ice cream. Quality and consistency are tied to this brand. We’ll start in Florida and see how it goes.”
The Sanibel store, meanwhile, has been closed since Hurricane Ian.
“That’s the only store I wasn’t worried about,” Borst said. “It’s about 14 feet off the ground. It ended up with the most damage. The AC unit broke off the roof and tore a hole in it. Rain practically destroyed the store. In the next couple of weeks, we plan to start the rebuild.”
Coming soon: 'Dream come true': Hurricane Ian-destroyed Matlacha restaurant to open Cape Coral location
For now though, Borst is focused on the new Cape location.
“It feels really good to be here,” he said.
Love Boat Ice Cream, 1523 NE Pine Island Road, Suite 150, Cape Coral, open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily; Fort Myers locations include 16475 San Carlos Blvd., 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily; 7977 Dani Drive, Unit 130, at Village Walk, noon to 10 p.m. daily; 1512 Hendry St. in downtown, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday to Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday; loveboaticecream.com or follow on Facebook and Instagram
Robyn George is a food and dining writer for The Fort Myers News-Press. Send news to [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Love Boat Ice Cream makes its much anticipated debut in Cape Coral
