Natalie Wallace
Growing up in a “very Italian” family meant that food was a big part of Natalie Wallace’s life. More specifically—dessert was everything.
“My mom made dessert every night, like multiple desserts,” she said. “So, it was always like, ‘what’s for dessert?’”
Wallace especially loved ice cream, the comfort that a cold pint on the couch provided after a bad day and the joy that a freshly scooped and drippy cone offered on a good day. The frozen treat has played a consistent role in her life, she’s realized over the years. Her husband even proposed to her with an ice cream cone.
But as much as she loved ice cream, it didn’t always leave her feeling the best.
In high school, she remembers going to Dairy Queen with friends and taking a Lactaid pill before “slamming a Blizzard,” she said, laughing.
But it wasn’t until her 20s that she realized she had food allergies and needed to cut certain products out of her diet—a nightmare for a foodie. However, it’s been over a decade now that Wallace, a Susquehanna Township resident, has been gluten and dairy free.
What happened to her love for ice cream? It’s only grown by the scoop, just minus the dairy.
In 2018, Wallace had an idea to start an ice cream business. But without any experience making ice cream, just eating a lot of it, the idea didn’t take off quite yet. Plus, she already had her two video production businesses, one that specialized in wedding videography and another that provides commercial video services.
But when COVID hit, the weddings stopped. At about the same time, she was gifted an ice cream maker. So, she had plenty of time and no excuses not to try her hand at making her favorite treat.
“I wanted to make ice cream that I can’t find in the stores,” she said. “There are options, of course, but the flavors are really limited. There are a lot of basic, classic flavors that they still don’t make on a large scale in a dairy-free version.”
In May 2021, Wallace launched her Harrisburg-based ice cream business, Honey Bear, named after her pet name for her dog, offering gluten- and dairy-free, vegan ice cream.
Flavor by the Scoop
Harrisburg resident Robyn Sitz has followed Honey Bear since the beginning.
After being diagnosed with celiac disease, she started looking for gluten-free dessert options and stumbled upon Honey Bear.
Like Wallace, Sitz explained the difficulty of finding ice cream she could eat that came in flavors other than simple vanilla and chocolate. But with Honey Bear, the options were like none she’d ever found.
“It’s the whole range of flavors,” she said. “Honey Bear has everything dialed in perfectly— the texture, the flavor. I would liken her stuff to Häagen-Dazs. It’s decadent.”
“Lucky Denver Mint” is Sitz’s favorite.
Other unique Honey Bear flavors include “Black Star,” double chocolate brownies swirled into chocolate ice cream, “Monday Morning,” brown sugar ice cream with crumb cake and a cinnamon sugar swirl, and “American Girl,” vanilla ice cream with New York-style cheesecake and strawberry and blueberry sauces.
Honey Bear also carries the classics like vanilla, strawberry, peanut butter ripple and chocolate chip cookie dough.
Replacing the dairy are ingredients like organic coconut cream and coconut milk, as well as other allergen-free alternatives.
A few flavors boast sweet collabs with local businesses, such as “No Bad Days,” which blends in Dillsburg-based Tucker&Co. Bakery’s oat chocolate chip bars, and “Supernaut,” which uses Harrisburg-based Little Amps Coffee Roasters’ coffee, swirled with fudge and chocolate covered coffee beans.
Little Amps is also where customers can find Honey Bear pints and smaller, sundae cups in ice cream freezers at the shop’s State Street and Green Street locations.
“It’s just delicious,” said Little Amps CEO Peter Leonard. “The community response has been wild.”
Honey Bear also sells pints in a number of other local stores and regularly hosts ice cream pop-ups, traveling around the state in their blue-and-white trailer and handing out cones.
“I’ve been pretty blown away by the community support from the start,” Wallace said. “It’s important to me that everyone feels welcome at our events.”
Sweets & Sunshine
It was through one of the pop-up events that Lauren Kuda, who lives near Philadelphia, first tried Honey Bear.
“It’s hard to find ice cream that checks all the boxes and still tastes good,” said Kuda, who is dairy and gluten free. “Honey Bear’s flavors brought the nostalgia and made me feel like I was eating the desserts I once could eat.”
Kuda attends as many Honey Bear pop-ups as she can, but even when she misses one, Wallace is often willing to meet up with her for a special delivery.
“I am so grateful to be able to access something I can enjoy,” Kuda said.
Providing quality customer service is an important ingredient in Honey Bear’s mission. She calls her scoop team members the “sunny honeys” and trains them to “be sunshine” to customers.
Wallace knows what it’s like to go to a restaurant and feel stressed about having to question the ingredients that are in dishes or ask for allergen-free options. Her goal is to foster an environment that is the opposite of that, where the needs of people with food allergies are prioritized.
“We are trying to serve a group of customers that we feel are underserved and ignored,” Wallace said. “We are all about giving them a stress-free experience. They can feel free to ask any question.”
That mission seems to be working as Honey Bear keeps growing and gaining more faithful followers.
Next up for the business is finding a bigger kitchen space, as they currently operate out of a rented church kitchen. After that, the business could expand into its own scoop shop or ramp up wholesale production. Wallace is still trying to decide on the next move, but one thing is for sure—Honey Bear is at a big turning point.
Regardless of what comes next, Wallace is committed to Honey Bear, her customers and her love for ice cream, which hasn’t wavered, even though it’s on her mind all the time.
“We only have one life, so we should be doing something we are proud of that speaks to who we are,” she said. “I think about ice cream all day, and I never get sick of it.”
For more information on Honey Bear, where to purchase ice cream and upcoming events, visit www.honey-bear-kitchen.square.site.
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