The owner of an Ellsworth boutique and hair salon has opened the city’s only gelato stand in the parking lot of her High Street clothing store.
The new gelato, coffee and waffle stand, Maple & Cream, sits in the parking lot of Fika Boutique, at the intersection of High Street and Beechland Road, across from Acadia Provisions and Global Beverage Warehouse.
Although there are a handful of ice cream parlors in Ellsworth, the new High Street stand is the only such shop that specializes in gelato, an Italian form of ice cream that uses more milk and less cream than its American counterpart.
Melissa Bradford, a local entrepreneur and hairstylist who owns Fika Boutique and the Alchemist Salon in downtown Ellsworth, opened the stand on June 19. In the little under two months since opening, the stand has quickly become popular among residents and visitors.
“Blueberry Hill is right up the road, and that’s been a community staple for a long long time, so I didn’t want to step on their toes,” Bradford said, referring to a popular High Street ice cream shop. “I wanted to do something that kind of set us apart, and I personally prefer gelato over ice cream.”
The cafe joins a growing number of specialty food options with international roots in Ellsworth: a Brazilian pastry shop opened on June 19 — the same day as the gelato stand — and a grab-and-go market with Sri-Lankan and Indian-centered dishes launched in April.
Bradford, who had no experience with food-related businesses prior to Maple & Cream, curated the menu herself, she said, adding that her husband Andrew, a woodworker, built the truck from a design she created.
The stand offers a unique assortment of drinks, including sweet ube (a type of yam) and coconut flavored matcha and blueberry cold brew. But their edible treats distinguish this cafe from many of the region’s other small coffee shops: Maple & Cream serves waffles topped with various flavors of gelato, like Tahitian Vanilla Bean, Maple butter pecan and chocolate cookie crunch.
The menu features a range of treats with nature-inspired names, like the wild thicket, which has vanilla gelato topped with white chocolate raspberry, graham crumble and raspberry drizzle. The stand’s midnight tide consists of cold brew coffee gelato with a chocolate drizzle, espresso granola and flaky sea salt.
The sea smoke cold brew float comes with vanilla bean gelato, brown sugar foam and espresso maple drizzle, and the amber orchard woodland fizz combines Italian soda with touches of peach, almond, cinnamon and orange.
“One of the things that stands out about [Maple & Cream] is that our ingredients are real and a lot of them are organic,” Bradford said. “I’m not cutting corners to make a buck: it’s really important to me that we’re putting out a quality product that also tastes really good.”
Maple & Cream also sells fresh flower bouquets sourced from Salt Farm Flowers in Trenton, homemade dog treats and Maine-made pantry items, like blueberry crumble granola and blueberry jam.
Maple & Cream, which is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., has attracted even more customers than anticipated: Bradford had to hire three more workers in July, growing the team to seven employees.
“It’s really taken off — I honestly am shocked at how busy and successful it’s been,” Bradford said. “I kind of thought it was going to be a chill vibe where people could grab a coffee and go into Fika, but it surpassed the busyness of Fika.”
Fancy Plants, a plant-based food truck with Latin-inspired dishes, operated out of Fika’s parking lot in 2025. The truck left Ellsworth when the owner’s wife found a job in Canada, Bradford said.
Fika Boutique, named after a Swedish word for the country’s traditional social coffee break, offers coastal-inspired apparel, home goods and accessories, like wool feather hats, leather tassel earrings, handwoven cotton robes and sterling silver bangles. Bradford opened Fika in 2022.
The Alchemist Salon, which Bradford launched out of the third floor of the Maine Grind building in 2011, has since moved a few doors down to 121 Main St.