When customers arrive at Trailside Treats Creamery in Goshen, odds are they’ll find owner Paul Corey in the back whipping up the day’s ice cream and other frozen treats himself, bringing the tastes of the American South and the styles of Italy to the Hudson Valley.
Located on a block-long side street off Goshen’s main drag, Trailside Treats conjures the image of a peaceful rural vacation: It resides in a blue house with an ordering window on the first floor and a patio that is perched along the entrance to the Heritage Trail.
The store has five ice cream machines, so Corey circulates five flavors at a time, always experimenting and listening to customers when it comes time to switch up their rotation. “You gotta be my ears,” he frequently tells the employees up front, who take down customer suggestions and share them with Corey. Their pralines and cream flavor was inspired by one such interaction.
Corey, who grew up in Goshen, arrived at the ice cream biz in a roundabout way. Up until opening Trailside Treats in 2012, he had had a title searching company. He bought the building his store would one day occupy as an investment, though he wasn’t sure what he would do with it. As he cleaned out the building for renovations, he noticed the amount of people passing by along the Heritage Trail. “I had always thought about [starting] an ice cream stand—it’s always been [in] the back of my mind as something I could see myself doing,” Corey says. The high-foot traffic location motivated him to start researching the business.
When he first opened, he bought pre-made ice cream, but pretty soon started making his own Italian ice, homemade ice cream, and—new for the 2023 season—gelato. Corey focuses on innovation, constantly reading and trying new things. “Any product that goes out our window I want to be the highest quality,” Corey says.
Sometimes, his curiosity leads to serendipitous gifts. Corey and his partner, Denise Guion, travel during the off season, exploring the southern United States in an RV. (Their travels have inspired flavors like butter pecan.) Corey wanted to be able to experiment with new flavors while on the road, so he scoured the internet for an ice cream machine small enough to fit in the RV. The result? Two gelato makers imported from Italy that now sit in the Trailside Treats kitchen during the season. The machines churn the gelato continuously, removing the fat and leaving the product smoother and creamier than many American-made gelatos. Trailside Treats serves it straight from the machine, where it is churned up until the last second.
The gelato sundaes are a can’t-miss item. The key lime pie sundae is made from key lime gelato on a bed of graham cracker crumbs and topped with whipped cream, while the strawberry cheesecake sundae has the same graham cracker base and is swirled with strawberries.
Trailside Treats always combines creative flavors and toppings: Their cappuccino fudge crunch ice cream gets its crunch from chopped almonds, and their vanilla soft serve can be turned into a sundae topped with Nutella and freshly baked churros. Corey also bakes the waffle cones and the cookies they use in ice cream sandwiches in-house. In addition to ice cream, they serve milkshakes, root beer floats, and ice cream sodas, including a pineapple float made with pineapple soda and Dole Whip.
As another summer kicks off in the Hudson Valley, business has soared past even pre-pandemic levels, and the community has nothing but praise for the store. They were even named the best small local business by Assemblyman Colin J. Schmitt in June 2021. But like so many other places, they were required to get creative during the pandemic. They created an online ordering portal and curbside delivery service, which has remained a popular way for customers to order, and helped Trailside Treats avoid some ice cream store pitfalls. For example, when it’s raining customers can enjoy the ice cream shop experience from their warm, dry cars. Corey admits he might never have thought of it without COVID, but they plan to keep it around. “It’s added another outlet without adding onto the building,” Corey says.
The store’s ingredient purveyors remain Corey’s secret; his recipes are the priceless results of trial and error. But he’s open about his cooking philosophy. “I’m constantly working on bettering the ingredients. I stay away from artificial ingredients and flavorings. I try to keep everything we do as natural as possible,” he says. The store’s cappuccino ice cream, for example, is flavored with real coffee.
Customers couldn’t find an ice cream store more committed to serving them the best quality and best tasting products. So after your next stroll on the Heritage Trail, stop in and be some of the first to try Trailside Treats gelato. The store is open seven days a week from 12pm to 9:30pm.
