Cauldron Ice Cream
Rating: ★★★★☆
Address: 4646 Convoy St, San Diego, CA 92111
Hours of Operations: Monday – Thursday: 12:00 PM – 10:00 PM, Friday – Saturday: 12:00 PM – 12:00 AM, Sunday: 12:00 PM – 10:00 PM
When I found out that Cauldron Ice Cream was opening a location in San Diego, I was stoked. I’ve seen so many of my friends eating it in Orange County and I’ve been dying to get a chance to try it myself. Featured in places like Eater, the Food Network, the Cooking Channel, and more, Cauldron mixes homemade, natural ice cream with their infamous “puffle cone.”
I’ve seen pictures of their puffle cones and ice cream everywhere – Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. It has a very distinct look as they also shape the ice cream into a rose, making this delicious treat look like a kind of ice cream bouquet. Pretty cute! So when I finally had the chance to try it, I knew I had to do it.
Cauldron is located in a plaza that also houses Rakiraki (a very popular ramen shop), Crab Hut, and Angels & Hearts Harajuku Crêperie. Just like all other plazas in Convoy, parking is an absolute nightmare. My friends and I had grabbed dinner at a nearby restaurant, so we just had to walk a block to get here. I don’t think I would have been very happy trying to find parking. Honestly, I probably would have given up and left. LOL. The parking spots were tight and tiny with people taking sharp turns and trying to steal spots from one another. Yikes. I definitely knocked a star off of this review simply because of the messy parking lot. Please be prepared when you get here for the inevitable headache!
From the outside, the store actually looked closed. It had tinted/blacked out windows and a keylock pad tied onto the door. We thought we had arrived at the wrong time (maybe they had just done a soft opening and hadn’t figured out their hours yet?), but when we realized there were actually people inside, we went in.
The interior of the store is really cool! A little small, but not a huge deal. There were still a lot of tables and chairs to sit at. When we got in, there was no line. This was great as it gave us a chance to look over their menu and watch the employees work their magic. From what I understand, they rotate the flavors monthly, so it’s always nice to check their menu beforehand to get an idea of what to expect.
I saw that they were serving salted caramel ice cream and knew what I was going to get immediately haha. The salted caramel flavor includes “caramel ice Cream and pretzel bits for crunch,” which is then “topped with sea salt and house made caramel ribbons.” Yum!
My friends got the Sun, Moon, & Stars flavor (a blend of oolong, jasmine, and green tea) and the H2O Rose (essence of rose garnished with a coat of rose sugar). Since it was our first time here, we all decided to get the typical/standard flavors, which meant no extra toppings and just plain/regular puffle cone.
Food didn’t take too long to come out and we managed to snag a table pretty quickly! We also took this moment to try to take as many pictures as possible. Even though the store had the A/C blasting, our ice cream was still melting rather quickly. Thankfully my friends stepped up and took on the role as my hand models and I was able to snag a few great pics.
My salted caramel ice cream was SO. STINKIN. GOOD. If you are a huge salted caramel fan like me, then I definitely recommend giving this a chance. There was the perfect mixture of sweet and salty. I didn’t care too much for the pretzel bites (not a fan of pretzels), but the saltiness and crunch did add a bit of ‘oomph.’ I think my favorite part was when I finally got to the puffle cone itself. That, mixed in with the caramel ice cream and just a little bit of saltiness, was perfection. Ugh.
My friend described her Sun, Moon, & Stars ice cream as tasting like boba. The H2O Rose was also a great flavor. Overall, we were very pleased with what we got! I think the only downside was the cardboard wrap the ice cream came in. Since the ice cream was melting faster than we could eat it (no thanks to us taking a bunch of pictures, I’m sure), it ended up dripping out of the cardboard wrap and getting all over our clothes and the table. Womp womp. Not a huge deal as we could just clean it up with napkins, but still a bit of a pain.
The store itself is pretty clean and the employees are incredibly friendly and polite. They were more than happy to answer any questions that we might have had and give their personal recommendations on what flavors we should try. I’m definitely going to be coming back here in the future, especially to try the different flavors they have for the puffle cone. Red velvet? Sign me up.
If you ever find yourself in Convoy and are looking for something delicious to eat, then I really recommend Cauldron Ice Cream. I think everyone should go at least once, just for the experience and the super Instagrammable food haha!
