Kate Rodriguez, Contributing Photographer

On the corner of Orange and Canner streets in the East Rock neighborhood of New Haven stands a small, white building with an orange ice cream cone resting above its door. Inside, a menu lists only three flavors.

Elena’s on Orange has been open since November 2022. Since its opening, the store has only served soft serve ice cream in three flavors at a time: vanilla, chocolate and a third flavor which rotates on a weekly basis. This third flavor can range anywhere from sweet basil to brown sugar clove to passion fruit, and all special flavors are made using original recipes crafted on the premises.

Geena Fram, who has worked in the Elena’s flavor creation test kitchen since March 2023, described how she finds inspiration for new flavors.

“I think about things that I have tried in ice cream before, or would like to try in ice cream,” Fram said. “Sometimes, I’ll just walk through a grocery store and look around for inspiration, or I’ll read recipe books or go to a restaurant and think about new flavor combinations.”

The experimental nature of Elena’s flavor portfolio is a key aspect of the store culture, according to Angelo Hernandez, who has worked as a server at Elena’s since March 2024. Each Wednesday, the store serves a brand-new flavor created in the test kitchen under Fram’s supervision. 

Often, these “Wednesday Test Kitchen” events offer an incentive for community members to get involved in the flavor development process.

“We’ve had a lot of wonderful customers, regulars, tell us how much they love the Wednesday Test Kitchen,” said store owner Elena Grewal. “People are always weighing in on the flavors.” 

Social media is another venue through which Elena’s employees seek customer feedback. Using Instagram polls and interactive posts, the store is able to gauge customer’s interest in various rotating flavors. Fram also uses Instagram to offer exclusive invitations to flavor tasting events at times when the store is otherwise closed, encouraging customers to engage with Elena’s online. 

While Wednesdays at Elena’s always feature a new flavor as the complimentary option to the classic chocolate and vanilla, the store stocks a more familiar third option throughout the rest of the week. A flavor that receives positive reactions upon its initial debut from the test kitchen will later be introduced as a flavor of the week.

Variety and experimentation are key tenets of the Elena’s ethos, but Hernandez believes that an emphasis on quality when approaching classic flavors is equally as important.

“I personally appreciate doing things simply, but doing them really well,” Hernandez said. “I think that we balance simplicity with variety because of the way that our menu works.”

While chocolate and vanilla soft serve sit at the core of Elena’s menu, the store boasts several creative sundae combinations with the names to match, such as “Crunchy East Rocker” and “Elm City Express.” 

Ultimately, Hernandez, Fram and Grewal each agreed that the most unique element of the store is its place within the community and the strong relationship it maintains with its customer base. 

“It’s often a space for people to gather: friends, families and children with their parents and with their friends,” Hernandez said. “There’s an emphasis on community as well as on really quality ice cream, really quality ingredients.”

Last week’s rotating flavor was sweet basil.