For a late night cold treat, you can’t go wrong with Amy’s. With 17 locations across Texas and two in Houston, this ice cream behemoth is open until midnight, because it’s never too late for a sugary treat. Amy’s offers flavors like Mexican vanilla that encompasses Madagascar vanilla beans and Mexican orchids, as well as Belgian chocolate. Be sure to call your location to see if the parlor's range of specialty flavors include our favorite: the Tri-Wizard treat with Biscoff cookies, marshmallows, and melt-in-your-mouth chocolate chip cookie crush’ns.

The Rukab family has been making ice cream since the 1930s, when Sarah Rukab started selling small batches of her secret recipe for booza—a stretchy ice cream that gets its elasticity from mastic gum—door to door in Ramallah, Palestine.

In 2018, Fadi Rukab, a descendant of Sarah’s, decided to bring the concept to Houston by opening his own booza-dispensing ice cream shop in the Galleria area. Fadi, who immigrated to America from Palestine with his family as a teenager, says it was always his dream to get into the family business. “I used to see my dad and my uncles work at the shop [in Ramallah] when I was a child, and I was always interested in it,” he says.

The Houston shop features more than 20 different flavors like orange blossom, Turkish coffee, and rose water, and now also sells frozen goods online, with delivery available nationwide. Meaning no matter where you are in this booza-deficient country, the Rukabs’ small family business can still make it right to your door.

Don’t let the craziness get to your head at this roadside stop in Pasadena. Brain Freeze makes some of Houston’s most insane ice cream creations, like a rich chocolate shake (in a mason jar) topped with Oreos, full scoops of chocolate ice cream, and a Klondike bar. For color, and for the heck of it, the rim is “salted” with Fruity Pebbles. But that isn’t all—the menu offers just about every kooky idea under the sun.

As kids we were used to ice cream trucks coming to us, but with Cheater's Creamery, you'll have to drive to them. Stroll down Washington Avenue and treat yourself to either a cup or waffle cone with three scoops of your favorite flavors (and a free cherry on top), or get a dough boy, which sandwiches one scoop in between a warm powder sugared doughnut. For a cleaner option in this horrid Houston humidity, opt for a milkshake and blend your two favorite flavors together to create the perfect sweet treat.

This ice cream purveyor has scoop shops in the Heights, Midtown, and Katy, which means no matter where you are in the city you have convenient access to Cloud 10’s small-batch ice creams and sorbets. Although it’s almost impossible to choose, our favorite flavors here include banana cinnamon, café sua da, and toasted rice.

This is one of the city’s most popular ice cream spots, and it’s clear why: Fat Cat’s menu is stacked with special flavors you can’t find anywhere else. Take the milk chocolate stout, crafted from milk chocolate ice cream and Independence Brewing Co.'s Convict Hill oatmeal stout.

With three locations in Houston (including one very buzzy spot in Post Houston’s food hall), there’s a lot to love about Flower & Cream, which might explain its motto: “Lick. Laugh. Love.” Flavors include must-tries like raspberry tres leches and honey-roasted strawberry.

The national chain that started in Ohio has taken Houston by storm with its creative flavors. There’s salted peanut butter with chocolate flecks, brown butter almond brittle, and gooey butter cake, along with dairy-free offerings like cold brew with coconut cream.

When you want the traditional Indian ice cream known as kulfi, or maybe the cold drink falooda, there’s Kwality. At the chain’s three Houston-area locations, find flavors like Alphonso King Mango, and the wondrous kulfi falooda, made with rose, malai, and tukmaria (watercress seeds). You can go cone or cup, or again, pop it in a falooda with ingredients like basil seeds and vermicelli.

Magnolia’s is stocked full of everything from raspas to mangonadas to homemade ice cream. The shop mixes its ice cream flavors with fruit and candies to create a highly satisfying sugar rush. Our favorite is the cantaloupe and cream, an ubersweet treat featuring cantaloupe-and-vanilla ice cream topped with pieces of the fresh fruit and condensed milk.

You'll find that this ice cream hang doesn’t do vanilla or chocolate. Find fun and cheekily named combinations like a cereal milk base with Froot Loops (called Follow Your Nose) and a cream cheese base with cinnamon sugar blondies (called Heart of Glass). Make sure your scoops go into a brown sugar waffle cone.

What’s better than ice cream in a waffle cone? Ice cream in a bubble waffle cone, of course. Unlike typical waffle cones, Over the Top Waffle Shoppe’s cones are soft, cakey, and warm—an excellent contrast to the velvety smooth ice cream inside. The shop offers signature creations with a ready-made combination of flavors and toppings. Try the Granny’s Banana Pudd’n or Unconeditional Love, or create your own mash-up out of the shop's 12 flavors, 30 toppings, and the choice between a vanilla or chocolate bubble waffle.

Founded by Houston native Jonathan Delgado, Popston started out as a pushcart and is now a brick-and-mortar known for its unique, and often very colorful, creations. Think flavors like orange salted lemonade, blueberry mojito, pistachio rose water, and salted caramel chocolate cajeta frozen pops.

No ice cream shop in Houston allows you to taste the rainbow more than Red Circle. The small local chain has neon-hued flavors like Elmo Crunch, Donkey Kong, and Green Goblin. It also gets adventurous with scoops like durian, crawfish, and Hot Cheetos. The big draw at Red Circle are the churros—get your favorite and add a scoop of the ice cream of your choice. And no churro hits quite like the churro daddy, a circular creation that arcs around your ice cream scoop for an unmistakably Instagrammable feast.

This Spanish gelateria is renowned in its home country for its unique offerings, which come in flavors like baked apple, coconut and violet, and almond nougat, sometimes topped with hunks of chocolate or a puff of cotton candy. Lucky for us, the company’s only US location is here in Houston. Equally thrilling as its soft-serve gelato are its pops, which come in the shape of a nose, a hand, or a profile that looks suspiciously similar to Darth Vader.

Somisomi’s taiyaki waffle cones are what ice cream dreams are made of. With three locations in the area, the chain lets you top your fish-shaped ice cream receptacle with ube, matcha, or black sesame–flavored soft serve.

With its calming pink and white hues and its old-school parlor feel, Sweet Bribery certainly looks like a throwback. But the creativity runs high at this boozy sweet-treat establishment. Choose from flavors like coconut milk horchata, champagne mimosa sorbet, and bourbon espresso, or order a porter float made with a local dark beer. We recommend Southern Grasshopper for a refreshing summery moment: mint chocolate chip ice cream, a crème de menthe brownie, hot fudge, and Andes mints.

This local business adds its own unique Texas flair to gelato through its various flavors. Head on over to the Montrose shop to curb your sweet tooth and see what Sweet Cup's homemade gelato, sorbets, and yogurts are all about. With flavors added seasonally, you'll always have something new to try.

With Houston's large Latino population, it's no surprise that our Mexican food scene extends beyond tacos and other savory options. At Treats of Mexico, you'll find housemade traditional treats such as nieve de garrafa, mangonadas, and aguas frescas, as well as imported candies like Pulparindo, Pulparindots, Duvalín, mazapán, and more.

Started as a truck in New York, Van Leeuwen is now one of the most popular ice cream makers in America. The chain uses a whole bunch of eggs in its ice cream, which makes its offerings a little more velvety and rich than sweet. The result is seriously addictive stuff, from honeycomb and Earl Grey tea to marionberry cheesecake, plus a number of vegan ice creams, including some made with oat milk. We love the peanut butter brownie in particular.