New South Shields ice cream parlour aims to be cream of the crop

Creme De La Creme, which is also a cakery, opened its doors in Ocean Road four weeks ago.

The shop sells ice creams, sundaes, waffles, pancakes, cookie dough, cakes, and other food and drink, and owner Dannii Gallagher has been delighted with how the public have responded so far.

Dannii, 36, who owned a similar shop in Chester-le-Street before opening up at 158 Ocean Road, said: “It is going crazy.

“It has been manic from the day we opened, and everyone seems to be loving it.

“We’ve been really surprised by how quickly it has grown.

“As well as ice creams, we sell lots of other things, including waffles and pancakes, and you have to go as far as Newcastle for other shops selling some of the items we offer.”

A Facebook page for the shop has already attracted more than 1,700 likes.

Dannii, from Washington, added: “We’ve had so many nice comments since we opened, which is a great boost to us.

“Everything seems to be going down a storm, and we couldn’t be happier with the response.

“Things didn’t go too well for me in the shop I had at Chester-le-Street, because everything was closing around me.

“With this one, though, it has just hit it off straight away.

“We got the shop in November and it took us quite a while to get it up to scratch. We wanted it to look as good as possible.

“It had been a butcher’s before, and he has since come back to have a look and said he couldn’t believe the difference.”

The shop is open seven days a week between 10am and 8pm, and has proven particularly popular among those who have just eaten at one of Ocean Road’s curry houses.

Dannii, a single mum-of-three, has been working every hour.

She added: “I don’t know the area much, so it was a bit of an unknown for me at the start.

“I’m a single parent with three children, so my hands are so full, but I’ve loved every minute of this so far.

“The opening hours are working well, but we’ll probably be open until later in the summer.

“Hopefully, things will go so well that we’ll open another shop eventually. I’m over the moon with how it has gone so far.”