Sherry Rosenberg loved owls, soda fountains, the color pink, and pistachio ice cream. With the opening of Sherry’s Soda Shoppe yesterday, her grandson Joshua Pollack will add his “nanny” to his list of family namesake restaurants, which includes Rosenberg’s Bagels & Delicatessen and Lou’s Italian Specialties (named for Sherry’s husband and Josh’s grandfather, Lou).

Sherry would be proud—the vintage-style soda shop, which feels like a mash-up of 1920s glamour and 1950s cheer, features an art nouveau-style owl wallpaper, owl figurines, plenty of pink, and perhaps the best pistachio ice cream in town. “This was the kind of place my grandma and grandfather went to in New York [City],” Pollack says. “All of our brands are about the nostalgia of New York.”

When the Rolling Pin Bakeshop closed last fall, Pollack wondered what to do with the empty space, which is adjacent to Rosenberg’s and his walk-up pizza window, Famous Original J’s. His aha moment was seeing an old picture of the Arcade, the building that now houses Rosenberg’s. The photo was of an old soda jerk fountain that used to exist in that very building, and, thinking of his nanny Sherry, Pollack knew his next venture would be to create an ice cream and soda shop in her honor.

At Sherry’s Soda Shoppe. Photo courtesy of From the Hip Photo

To helm the ice cream operation, Pollack brought on Milena Nichols, formerly with Sweet Cow. Together they developed Sherry’s 20 rotating flavors, most of which are made with an all-natural, 14-percent butterfat base; there are also four vegan options. Opening flavors include candied lemon, caramelized maple bacon, that amazing pistachio, and vegan chocolate cake—all of which can be topped with fudge, caramel, whipped cream, and/or cookies. Eat it out of a cup or waffle cone, but we’re loving Sherry’s pretzel cones for that perfect sweet-and-salty bite.

“I was on a solid two-pints-a-day diet over the past two months,” Pollack says of narrowing down the flavors from 40 to 20.

There’s some crossover with Pollack’s other brands at Sherry’s, including in the can’t-miss lace cookie ice cream, where lace cookies from Lou’s Italian are infused into the cream base. You also might recognize Rosenberg’s babka and black and white cookies, which are used as the endcaps for the ice cream sandwiches.

The shop makes nearly all of the 11 soda syrups from scratch, in old-school flavors like cream soda, lemon lime, and ginger, and the newer-school flavors of lavender and basil. (It outsources root beer from Idaho Springs’s Tommyknocker Brewery and CBD lavender lemon soda from Denver’s Backyard Soda Co.) Other retro drinks include acid phosphates (tangy, tart sodas), effervescence (a fizzy, lemon-flavored digestif), and egg creams (rather like a chocolate milk soda).

Sherry’s is just one of Pollack’s on-going projects; he premiered Rosenberg’s After Dark at Stanley Marketplace last week and plans to open an outpost of Rosenberg’s Bagels & Delicatessen in Boulder this fall.

2714 Welton St.

Allyson Reedy
Allyson Reedy
Allyson Reedy is a freelance writer and ice cream fanatic living in Broomfield.