Pedal Parlor Aims to Bring You Ice Cream Sundaes by Bike

Who wants ice cream?!

Jared Goodman is betting that a lot of you do. He recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds needed to take his popular Morgan St Theater ice cream sundae pop-ups on the road, by bike.

So far, he's raised more than half of the $9,000 he estimates he'll need for a custom-built trike, complete with freezer, prep area and umbrella, and a faster commercial-grade ice cream maker. If he raises the remaining funds by May 23, he hopes to be cycling his Pedal Parlor bike around town to sell desserts in Concordia (in the grassy alley adjacent to Beast), at P's & Q's Market, and near the intersection that's home to Podnah's Pit and the soon-to-open Handsome's Pizza.

Goodman, a former social studies teacher turned stay-at-home-dad, says the pop-up idea came to him as a way to meet more people. Rather than head out, daughter in tow, he'd invite the public to him, offering his creative take on ice cream flavors. However, during these events he'd often tell stories about his life as it related to the ingredients used in each treat — that's where the theater part came in.

His idea turned out to be a hit. We picked up Goodman's story in early 2014, as did The Oregonian and Portland Monthly. Eventually, his monthly series proved so popular that he had to move operations from his home kitchen to more legitimate environments. He's thrown pop-ups at Din Din Supper Club, Cafe Eleven, The Side Yard farm and at private residences.

His approach to ice cream, he says, is to create proper flavor balances while cutting its sweetness by adding touches of acidic ingredients like shrubs, infused olive oil or feta cheese.

But what he really wants to do is re-engineer the sundae. "What can't the sundae be more like a cookie?" he asks. Why can't we shrink its size and and create a sweet and savory treat that's more complex than a big bowl of sweet upon sweet upon sweet?

That's why he's come up with creations like this: a scoop of either buttermilk, fresh mint or strawberry ice cream, topped with macerated strawberries, strawberry shrub, brown-butter polenta crumbles and whipped cream-like mascarpone "clouds" — which he hopes to share with the wider public come this summer.

If you're a fan of his pop-up series, don't worry, it isn't going anywhere. In fact, Goodman wants to use it as a laboratory for future Pedal Parlor seasonal specials.