Carvel is an American ice cream franchise owned by Focus Brands. Carvel is best known for its soft-serve ice cream and ice cream cakes, which feature a layer of distinctive ‘crunchies’. It also sells a variety of novelty ice cream bars and ice cream sandwiches. Its slogan is “America’s Freshest Ice Cream”.
Carvel operates a chain of more than 500 franchised ice cream outlets. It has locations in 25 states and Puerto Rico, and internationally in some Middle Eastern countries, located in high-traffic areas such as airports, malls, and sports arenas. The company also sells ice cream cakes in more than 8,500 supermarkets.
Since 2001, the corporation has been owned by Roark Capital Group and operated as part of Focus Brands. As of 2020, the Carvel corporate website reports “more than 400 franchise and foodservice locations in more than 20 states and over 10 countries.”
Carvel popularized various novelty ice cream items, such as the “Flying Saucer”, a circular ice cream sandwich, the “Icy Wycy”, a paper cone of sherbet on a stick, “Brown Bonnet” and “Cherry Bonnet,” frozen vanilla ice cream on a sugar cone dipped in a sweet, waxy confection, the “Tortoni”, a cup of vanilla ice cream covered with toasted coconut and topped with a maraschino cherry, and the “Lollapalooza”, cylindrical ice cream on a stick covered with colored sprinkles, as well as the “Mamapalooza” and “Papapalooza”.
The mainstays of Carvel’s line of ice cream cakes were 7- to 12-inch rounds, 10 x 14 and 12 x 17-inch sheet cakes, and the “Carvelog”, a log-shaped cake made in a cylindrical mold. In addition to Cookie Puss, Fudgie the Whale and Hug-Me the Bear, there were special cakes for most major holidays, including a “Flower Basket” for Mother’s Day, “Hoot The Owl” for June graduations, “Dumpy the Pumpkin” and “Wicky The Witch” for Halloween, “Tom the Turkey” for Thanksgiving, “Seamus The Leprechaun” or “Cookie O’Puss” for St. Patrick’s Day, and Santa Claus or a “Snow Man” for Christmas. Most of these were made from one of a limited number of molds; the Santa Claus cake had a two-pointed hat because the mold was ordinarily inverted and used the rest of the year to make Fudgie the Whale, who had a tail. Their primary differences from products available year-round were the designs on the icing.
