Let’s say you find yourself cruising the backroads off 67. Hopefully your windows are down. You’re wondering if this counts as Woodbridge or Seymour (it’s actually Bethany), when you get a sign: Kriz Farm Ice Cream. The farm is 10 miles from the New Haven Green but entirely someplace else. Its red-roofed shop sits in the middle of an idyllic valley under a bowl of summer sky. The breeze combs through the green grasses in a way that might have you hearing Field of Dreams-style voices whispering about the transformative power of Americana.
Long before Wendy and Timmy Kriz met and married, each was a child who dreamed of running an ice cream shop. But their road to Kriz Farm Ice Cream, established in 2020, was winding. When the Kriz family acquired the farm 65 years ago, they actually transitioned it away from dairy, to horses. Timmy is an eighth-generation farrier, his son the ninth, whom you may catch at the shop if they aren’t “out shoeing.” Wendy, on the other hand, had a career in pharmaceuticals, which she left to spearhead the small business she’d long dreamed of. Soon, in true if-you-build-it-they-will-come fashion, cars began to funnel down the long gravel driveway carrying their own frozen dessert dreams.
Still not a dairy, Kriz Farm sources their flavors locally, curating a menu that changes with the seasons. My companions and I sampled moose tracks, peanut butter pie, banana pudding, peach, and blackberry lemon bar. A “small” scoop ($4.75) was generously piled. We noticed (and heartily endorse) an inclination toward hunkiness: the rich banana pudding ice cream had large pieces of fruit and vanilla wafer, and the peanut butter pie was studded with peanut butter cups. Still, I think, the standout was the peach, a creamy vanilla-inflected conduit for fruit chunks the size of marbles.
One could add toppings, upgrade to a sundae, make it a float… but the stuff-to-substrate balance was already right on. If chunky isn’t your thing, I’d direct you toward the dark chocolate. If you’re a small child (or child at heart): the cookie monster. If you’re a dog: a pup cup.
The ice cream stand opens at noon from April to December, seven days a week, and scoops until 9 in peak season. In this setting (bowl of sky, green grasses, etc), it’s hard to imagine a world where it isn’t summer, but the farm does offer other forms of agritourism as the seasons change. In the fall there are pumpkins and craft fairs and horse-drawn wagon tours, not to mention visits from such luminaries as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. And if you’re there at magic hour on a summer’s eve, you may feel a little mythic yourself.
Written and photographed by Sarah Harris Wallman. Image 1 features a cone of the peanut butter pie. Image 2 features, from left, the banana pudding, moose tracks and peach. Image 3 features, from left, Laura Grim and Megan Condo, who worked the stand that day.
