Micah Camden’s Next Project After Super Deluxe? Chickpea Ice Cream

Say what you will about food business titan Micah Camden, the dude’s a risk-taker: The Boxer Ramen owner’s next big idea, now that his super popular burger drive-thru Super Deluxe is off the ground, is a brand of chickpea ice cream. Camden broke the news on Cort Johnson and Chris Angelus’s podcast Right at the Fork, where he said he secured an ice cream shop in the Pearl to open this October. He’s already developed 12 flavors of the five-ingredient ice cream that are completely dairy-free, soy-free, nut-free, and gluten-free.

“The dairy and the gluten-free, that is the thing that’s affecting a lot of America right now,” Camden told Johnson and Angelus. Camden’s interest seems personal, a la Duane Sorenson at Holiday: Camden is almost completely off gluten, excluding the occasional cacio e pepe or business-based taste test. Angelus and Johnson tasted the ice cream before the podcast started; it sounds like the fan favorite was a matcha mint, though the two also tried a strawberry and a coffee. “When people think of chickpeas, they think of gritty,” Camden said on the show. “But when you [Angelus] heard that this is chickpeas, you were like, ‘What?’” Camden landed on chickpeas for the mouthfeel, which is smoother and creamier than things like soy and almond milks.

If you’re freaked out by the idea of chickpea ice cream, brace yourself: It’s actually becoming kind of a thing, with New York’s Hummus & Pita Co. launching its own line of hummus ice creams earlier this summer. Still, Camden says he “didn’t want any mental connection between hummus and ice cream.” So far, he’s had success on that front — he says interested venture capital firms requested filmed evidence of him making the ice cream with chickpeas because they didn’t believe they were in the base. We’ll taste for ourselves soon enough. Camden has not responded to requests for comment.

• Right at the Fork [Official]
• All Super Deluxe coverage [EPDX]
• The Hummus & Pita Co. Debut 4 New Flavors of Vegan Hummus Ice Cream [Live Kindly]

Disclosure: Eater Portland Editor Brooke Jackson-Glidden has appeared on Right at the Fork.