Henry’s Homemade Ice Cream in Plano is a neighborhood ice cream shop with a statewide reach.
The only Henry’s ice cream parlor is in a quiet residential neighborhood and it looks pretty much looks like any other. There are rows of booths and a glass freezer filled with tubs of multicolored frozen heavenly delights.
The little ice cream shop next to a Tom Thumb grocery store is an essential part of the neighborhood. Weekends, the parlor is often filled with kids celebrating a birthday or parents picking up an ice cream cake for a special occasion. Henry Gentry Jr., the company’s founder, frequently hosts special events and leads schoolchildren on tours of the store.
What sets Henry’s apart from most parlors is that it ships to about 700 wholesale customers. Restaurants from Abilene to Shreveport and Oklahoma City to San Antonio serve Henry’s ice cream. You can find Henry’s cinnamon ice cream at Planet Marfa, a bar and pizzeria, 540 miles west of Plano.
Gentry got into the ice cream business with this father, Henry Sr., in Philadelphia, Pa. Looking for a warmer climate where the ice cream business is more of a year-round occupation, Henry Jr. decamped to Texas in 1992.
With more than three decades in the frozen confectionary business under the motto “Ice cream makes you pretty,” Henry claims to have created over 1,000 flavors.
The freezer case in the shop has all the classic flavors and some colorful concoctions that kids adore. One of the best is “spumoni,” a mixture of strawberry, pistachio, and vanilla with maraschino cherries (mirroring the colors of the Italian flag). It’s the dessert of the gods.
Henry’s Homemade Ice Cream is at 3100 Independence Pkwy. at West Parker Road about three miles west of U.S. Highway 75 in Plano. The ice cream shop opens daily from 11am to 9pm, or look for it on the menu of your favorite restaurant.
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This article appears in September 20 • 2024.
