Spring is just around the corner, and as warmer weather approaches, local ice cream joints are awakening from their winter slumber. Warren and Jess Sternberg, the owners of Clementine’s Homemade Ice Cream, have spent the winter months working hard to grow their small business. This spring, Aquidneck Islanders will be treated to a shop expansion and a new location for a delicious frozen treat.
Clementine’s, named after the owners’ beloved chocolate lab, opened their first location in East Greenwich in 2017. The East Greenwich branch will open this year on March 15 at 1 p.m. In 2020, the couple expanded their ice cream dream onto the island with their Middletown location, a site that is currently undergoing the finishing touches of an expansion into the other half of the 62 Wave Street Avenue building. Warren Sternberg hopes that the Middletown branch will open the weekend of March 22, but customers should check their social media pages or website for updates if construction delays occur, which may push back the seasonal opening to the weekend of March 29.
The most exciting opening for the couple, however, is their brand-new location in Portsmouth at 1016 East Main Road. Clementine’s is moving into the Fieldstone’s plaza, taking over the space vacated by the cheese shop, Milk & Honey. Hungry customers will have to wait a little bit longer for scoops in this location as construction winds down and customer service hiring and training ramp up. But ice cream lovers will rejoice for the grand opening of the space, which is predicted to be between the end of April and early May.
The Portsmouth location is the smallest of the three, and “because it’s a small shop, [it] will most likely just have ten or eleven flavors,” explains Sternberg. But the limited choice will be highly curated: “We will have some core flavors, things like cookie dough and Oreo, chocolate chop, vanilla, chocolate, chocolate brownie,” he lists off, “and then we will rotate through all the other flavors we have and some specials as well.” Eight or nine of the flavors available will be the most popular choices, and the rotational menu keeps the alternative choices special.
Sternberg’s favorite is Heath Bar – a vanilla ice cream base with Heath Bar crunch – “but our most popular flavor, in all of our stores, is cookie dough;” Portsmouth residents should expect to see that as a staple flavor for the new location.
While cookie dough isn’t made in-house like the rest of the ice cream (they use the same cookie dough producer who got their start making Ben & Jerry’s famous cookie dough), customers can be assured that this ice cream is special, the pinnacle of luxury. “We make everything homemade, onsite in East Greenwich, and then we will deliver it to the Middletown and Portsmouth locations,” Sternberg says. “It’s all made with high quality ingredients, like good cream, and […] it has a high butterfat content, so it’s really rich and creamy. It’s [also] super, super fresh. The ice cream that you’re eating in our shop is usually made two or three days before the point you’re eating it. It’s really classic, homemade ice cream. At least, we think so.”
