Big Feeling Opens Ice Cream Shop in the Dead of Winter
Alex Maddalena's pop-up is now permanent on the West End of Providence where you can buy pints of inventive ice cream flavors.
Big Feeling’s new location has a grab-and-go freezer for pints. Photo courtesy of Big Feeling.
Editor’s note: This article was updated from a previous version published in 2022.
Ice cream brings back childhood nostalgia and other special moments. Big Feeling fans now have a permanent spot to access its memory-unlocking craft ice cream by the scoop, cone or pint. The ice cream flavors are created by icy dessert extraordinaire Alex Maddalena, who wanted to channel childhood memories and emotions with the name of the business: Big Feeling. The new shop is located on the West End of Providence at 769 Westminster St., and it’s open Thursday through Sunday from noon to 9 p.m.
The shop opened up just before Christmas, yes, in the dead of winter. They are giving us the snark we came for: “Economists warned against it. Scholars pointed me elsewhere. Behavioral scientists said it would never work. But I pushed forward to open an ice cream shop in a month with average temperatures of 21 degrees F,” wrote Maddalena in an Instagram post. “It is our job to prove these out of touch academics wrong.”
Help Big Feeling defy the odds of the popularity of ice cream in January by showing your support for their opening. The premise of the shop is to tap into your emotions, and ice cream has the power to channel summer memories.
“I wanted it to reflect the literal feelings you get from having something so nostalgic and emotionally charged as a good ice cream cone,” Maddalena said in a previous interview in 2022. “Most people have a recollection from their childhood of a sweet treat or dessert that really stands out to them. I thought the name Big Feeling really reflected that experience.”
Maddalena started making ice cream regularly in 2016 after receiving a Cuisinart ice cream maker as a wedding gift.
“I thought it would be another item collecting dust on the shelf,” Maddalena says. “But I made one batch of ice cream and I got into this obsessive quest to improve with each time I made it.”
The ice cream maker is creating the types of frozen treats that can’t be found in stores using thoughtful ingredients procured from reputable sources. He started off in his home kitchen perfecting the craft, then handed out pints for feedback.
“I had a crew of our friends’ kids who were my taste-testers. That’s a critical demographic for the business,” he says. “You gotta impress the kids.” The very first time he gave out a pint, Maddalena scrawled the words “Big Feeling” under the child’s name, and he and the child’s parents watched as the child consumed the treat in a moment of elation. “They said, ‘how did you know he was going to react this way when eating it?’” Maddalena recalls. “It was kismet when I wrote that on the first pint.”
The business name also relates to a song written by Maddalena’s friend, Ben, and it’s reflective of feelings felt while working through depression. Maddalena left a desk job to take up ice cream making full-time. “When at times it felt hard for me to get motivated and to do the things I once loved, it seemed that cooking — nay, making ice cream — was always a trusted antidote to parting the grey skies,” Maddalena writes on the Big Feeling website. “And even better was sharing that ice cream with those around me — you get to realize what ice cream means to people. Often, one little taste can open up neural pathways and unlock chambers in your memory bank straight to your childhood.”
Before the pandemic, Maddalena made the ice cream in the Rooms and Works commercial kitchen space in Providence, followed by a move to the former Knead Doughnuts location at 32 Custom House Street in Providence. Back then, Big Feeling hosted popup appearances around town to dole the ice cream out to fans, quickly selling out on most occasions.
Now Maddalena has a permanent spot to produce and sell his craft. He thinks about every item that goes into the ice cream. The milk and cream comes from Wright’s Dairy Farm in Smithfield, and Maddalena procures seasonal ingredients through Farm Fresh Rhode Island’s Market Mobile. Citrus fruits and other fruits and vanilla beans are ordered directly through farms, and spices come from Burlap and Barrel. “We use direct trade, because it really does matter with the spices to make sure every aspect of the cultivation chain pays fair wages, and there’s no exploitative labor practices in those spice procurements,” he says.
Big Feeling ice cream.
That’s why the ice cream costs a little more than most are used to paying for a pint. “I put a lot of effort into writing about that on the website, just to justify the price point,” he says. “I want people to understand, it’s not just about buying the most expensive ingredients, it’s that the ingredients are priced a certain way when they are treated with care and respect down the line.”
Some of the current flavors at the shop might include vanilla, chocolate, dulce de leche, key lime pie, Thai tea and “Fluffernutter.” Non-dairy versions might include mango sticky rice and horchata. You can order them by the scoop ($6), double ($8) or pint ($12).
Every week is an opportunity to come up with new ice cream flavors that excite his devoted fans. “We cycle through new flavors and keeping it new and fresh and reflective for the time of year,” Maddalena says. “That keeps people excited to try it over and over again, and it keeps the brain sharp in terms of dreaming up new flavors.” 769 Westminster St., Providence, bigfeeling.co
