The West Palm Beach chain signs 1,450 square feet at a crosswalk two doors from Ben & Jerry’s, as the post-hurricane lease shuffle keeps reshaping the Circle.
—Perhaps ice cream is the most elevated of movable feasts. And next season that perfection of form will gain another famous scoop shop on St. Armands Circle.
—Sloan’s Ice Cream, the hot-pink Palm Beach County parlor that has been dripping across the country since 1999, has taken 1,450 square feet at 380B St. Armands Circle and plans to open in the first quarter of 2027. It will be the chain’s first store on Florida’s West Coast, and it lands in what may already be the most densely sugared 360 degrees in Sarasota.
—The Scoop on the Space
—The storefront, near South Boulevard of the Presidents, came open the way much of the Circle’s inventory did. Hurricanes Helene and Milton emptied a string of spaces in the fall of 2024, and Sloan’s, which says it had been hunting for a Circle site for a decade, moved in through broker Chris Bauman of American Property Group. Bauman’s pitch is location math: a crosswalk corner with heavy foot traffic, just a couple of doors from Ben & Jerry’s, which means either poaching a competitor’s line or feeding off it.
—The franchisee is a Sarasota resident, Sohrab Khadivian, who spent about two years shopping for a franchise, in part to give his teenage children a place to work. The Sarasota franchise sale was announced in May 2025; the address only surfaced this month.
—Not Your Vanilla Franchise
—Founder Sloan Kamenstein trained at Le Cordon Bleu in London and in French kitchens before opening the first Sloan’s in West Palm Beach, built around childhood summers on Martha’s Vineyard. The stores are the anti-minimalist parlor: hot-pink walls in his mother’s favorite color, crystal chandeliers, toy trains circling overhead, bulk candy walls and a restroom whose glass door turns opaque only when the lock clicks, a gimmick that made a national best-restroom shortlist in 2013.
—The menu matches the decor. The signature Tracy’s Kitchen Sink stacks 18 scoops with baked goods and toppings, and the brand has traded on cameos with the Kardashians and Jeff Goldblum. Franchising began in 2012, and the system reported average unit sales topping $1.15 million in 2023, which is pint-sized real estate throwing off serious revenue per square foot. Sloan’s now counts eight South Florida shops plus outposts in Ohio, Texas, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, a store in Kuwait and development deals in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. A Babcock Ranch location in Charlotte County is queued alongside the Circle.
—The Cold Math of the Circle
—Here is the freezer burn. The Circle already has Kilwins, Ben & Jerry’s, Settimi’s Gelato, Big Olaf and River Street Sweets pulling from the same tourist stream. Kilwins alone has been there since 1985 as the company’s first Florida store, and it just gutted and rebuilt after nearly a year dark following the storms, reopening a year ago this week.
—David Wild, Sloan’s director of franchising, told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune the Circle is “one of the highest trafficked tourist areas in the entire state,” and he conceded the competition is real, with every shop chasing the same customers. His counter is the dessert-district theory: pile enough sweets into one ring and the ring itself becomes the reason people come. That is the proposition Kilwins, Big Olaf and the rest will be testing from the other side of the crosswalk.
—Meanwhile, a Chocolatier Melts In
—Sloan’s is not even the newest scoop on the block. In late June, the Chocolate Emporium, the Pine Avenue chocolatier from Anna Maria Island, soft-opened its second location at 28A S. Boulevard of the Presidents with hours running 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. The Schreiner family’s shop is calibrated for the Circle’s on-the-go traffic rather than the sit-down pace of Anna Maria, but it still hand-scoops ice cream alongside truffles, Key lime confections, pickle fudge and a bacon-and-caramel bark exclusive to St. Armands. Count it, and Sloan’s would make seven sweets vendors in a ring you can walk in 10 minutes.
—Sprinkles on the Turnover
T —he churn runs well beyond dessert. Speaks Clam Bar exited after nearly eight years. Le Colonne came back in January reborn as Nōnnō Umberto after the Salustri family bridged the storm gap with a food truck. Jewelry by Cole, a fixture since 1974, has become St. Armands Jewelers under new ownership with a grand opening planned for November. The hurricanes did not just damage the Circle; they reshuffled the lease roll, and national brands with deep pockets are buying in at the same moment merchants are fighting City Hall over paid parking, with a commission workshop set for Monday.
—The Cherry on Top
—Construction and permitting details for 380B have not been released, and the opening remains a loose “first quarter.” Whether the Circle can absorb another premium scoop or has finally hit brain freeze is a question its landlords will answer at renewal time. For now, the winner is obvious: anyone holding a waffle cone.
