Hanalei Shave Ice relocates to St. Pete, bringing authentic Hawaiian dessert and coastal vibes

A brand fresh St. Pete exchange specializes in candy treats that are ideally suited for beating the sweltering summertime warmth.

A shrimp, tropical-themed trailer called Hanalei Shave Ice is parked at 2912 twenty fourth Avenue North close to the St. Pete Heights neighborhood. On the weekends, it dishes out legitimate and all-pure Hawaiian shave ice, a most well-liked dessert that combines soft, thinly-shaved ice with within the community-sourced fruit, sauces, and completely different toppings.

Proprietor Brandy Lynn Ford launched her exchange in Orlando’s Mills 50 district in 2019, and relocated the cell shave ice exchange to St. Pete just a few months within the past.

“I fair loyal felt like a coastal city like St. Pete would be spacious for my shrimp exchange, it’s a region that feels so homegrown to me,” Ford says in a conversation with St. Pete Rising. “I needed to bring one thing culturally legitimate to this say, and apart from wished to be rather closer to the water.”

A protection power previous-long-established who labored as a skilled chef for over two a protracted time, Ford has channeled her enormous culinary skills into one product that has ties to her upbringing and culture.

“You’ll never look me in that camper with out a smile on, because it’s a joy to be succesful to attain one thing that connects myself to my culture, my ancestors, and my kupuna. It makes me spacious proud to fragment this treat with people,” Ford says, whose father is a native Hawaiian.

There’s over a dozen shave ice flavors on the Hanalei menu, from fruity alternate choices like mango, lilikoi or passionfruit, lychee, coconut, and guava to irregular choices like Thai tea, milk and honey, cookies and cream, and key lime pie.

Possibilities would possibly maybe maybe well add a housemade vanilla milk cream to take care of up out a thicker, ice cream-like texture.

Since St. Pete has a popularity for being a wellness and health-oriented city, she expects residents to skills her truffles, since she never uses added sugars or synthetic sweeteners.

Ford says her most attention-grabbing-selling flavors are ube and mango li hing, which is topped with a pickled, salted plum powder standard in Hawaii.

She’s also organising a fresh taste that’s an ideally suited submit-exercise treat, a protein-filled shave ice that tastes like a creamy and tart Brazilian lemonade.

Hanalei’s menu is continuously changing, reckoning on what fruits are abundant and in-season. Weekly specials and a secret menu packed with irregular shave ice creations are also on hand on a first-come-first again basis.

In command to take care of up out the silky texture of legitimate shave ice, Ford imports water straight from Hawaii, adjusting the minerality and PH sooner than freezing it into spacious blocks.

The exchange is an homage to her tiresome father, an indigenous Hawaiian who grew up on the island of Kauai. As a younger man working within the taro and sugar cane fields, he supplied shaved ice on the weekends for additonal earnings.

For the first three years of her exchange, she hand-cranked every shave ice, fair loyal as her father did.

“For sure one of many things that is never any doubt critical to Hawaiian culture is that we give relieve to our āina or the land, and I continuously try to present relieve to my island,” Ford explains. “I maintain it enhances the exchange in a method, the truth that it’s named after our town of Hanalei. It’s where my family and my ancestors are no doubt from.”

With one region cemented close to the St. Pete Heights neighborhood, Ford will in the end bring a 2nd trailer to pop-up at native businesses and markets all the blueprint through Pinellas County.

She plans to frequently collaborate with Aloha to Traipse, one amongst basically the simplest legitimate Hawaiian drinking places in Tampa Bay.

While Ford will operate two locations in St. Pete, she doesn’t diagram to prolong her exchange noteworthy further.

“I love being a hidden gem because this treat is hand made and no longer one thing that will additionally be rushed. I continuously want to be one-on-one with my possibilities,” Ford explains. “We no doubt settle on that legitimate taste, and to attain that, probabilities are you’ll maybe well well also’t replicate it on a mass scale.”

“I love that tiny businesses would possibly maybe maybe well fair additionally be a hit in St. Pete, we are able to bring elegant payment to our communities and neighborhoods,” she continues.

At the moment, Hanalei Shave Ice is delivery from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays and 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays, with plans to prolong provider to Thursdays and Fridays within the arrival months.

Phrase Hanalei Shave Ice on Instagram and Facebook for updates about its weekend specials, operating hours, and more.