After a day of playing in the Rocky Mountains on a hot summer day, there’s no better treat than ice cream. Whether you enjoyed an easy walk to Grassi Lakes, a day at Quarry Lake or tackled the challenging Ha Ling Peak trail, there’s a wide variety of excellent ice cream shops in Canmore waiting for you.
We live in Canmore and we love ice cream, so it seemed natural to share our list of the best places to get ice cream in Canmore with you. Everyone’s taste is different, but we’re confident you’ll find some amazing Canmore ice cream in our list of our favorite ice cream places.
We support local business and do not accept free food in exchange for reviews. Our recommendations for the best ice cream shops in Canmore are places where we love to go and are based on ice cream we paid for.
Top 7 Places to Get Ice Cream in Canmore
1. The Old School Bus
The most popular place for ice cream in Canmore is the Old School Bus, a favorite of locals and visitors for many years. If you are visiting Canmore with kids, the Old School Bus needs to be on your itinerary.
Now at a new location on the edge of downtown Canmore on 10th Street, the Old School Bus offers over 25 flavors of ice cream & sorbet and several flavors of shaved ice. For a fun treat, ice cream floats are also on offer.
Our favourite flavors of ice cream at the Old School Bus in Canmore are Caramel Praline and Butter Pecan. Our kids favorite ice cream flavors at the Old School bus are Tiger and Rainbow Sherbet. In year’s past, the Old School Bus had an exceptionally good salted caramel ice cream, but we haven’t seen it on offer yet this year.
The Old School Bus has a large patio, but it would be nice if they added few more tables for guests. We like how they leave out a water dish for dogs to cool down while their owners enjoy some of the best ice cream in Canmore.
The Best Ice Cream in Canmore #1: Old School Bus Location
2. Canmore Cool Ice Cream
(formerly known as Scratch Rare Ice Cream)
You know that sound you make when you first taste something and it’s so good that you need to say something, but your mouth is too full? Well, both us of made that wonderful noise upon our first taste of Canmore Cool Ice Cream.
If you are looking for some of the best ice cream in Canmore, look no further than Canmore Cool Ice Cream. House-made by the talented chefs at the Blake Canmore, the quality of the ice cream at Canmore Cool Ice Cream was well ahead of the rest of the Canmore ice creams shop we tried.
The daily selection of ice cream at the Canmore Cool Ice Cream trailer is limited, with roughly 3 full-dairy ice creams and 3 plant-based ice creams to choose from.
Our favorite flavor of ice cream from the Canmore Cool ice cream trailer was Farmers Crumble, which is vanilla ice cream with loads of oatmeal crumble swirled in with a strawberry/rhubarb compote. They do not skimp on the ice cream fillings at Canmore Cool Ice Cream – Farmers Crumble ice cream was overflowing with fillings!
Although we felt that Farmers Crumble was the best ice cream flavor in Canmore, Bunny Luv (vanilla ice cream with graham crackers and chocolate mini-eggs) and Birds Nest (chocolate ice cream with chocolate covered pretzels and dulche de Leche) were also amazing.
Although the ice cream at Canmore Cool Ice Cream was among the most expensive ice cream in Canmore, the serving sizes were also the biggest. With generous scoops of high quality ice cream, served in an equally high quality waffle cone, we felt the price was worth it for the best ice cream in Canmore.
You can find the Canmore Cool Ice Cream trailer on Canmore’s main street in front of the PD3 by Blake food truck.
The Best Ice Cream in Canmore #2: Canmore Cool Ice Cream Location
3. Scoopin’ Moose
Also conveniently located in a central location on Canmore’s main street (8th Street), customers can choose from a wide variety of ice cream, served in a waffle cone or bowl. There’s some fun flavor options at this Canmore ice cream shop including Shark Bite (shark grey vanilla ice cream with blue raspberry and a red raspberry ribbon) and Birthday Cake ice cream – both of which are popular ice cream flavors for kids!
My favorite ice cream flavor at the Scoopin’ Moose is the sea salt caramel – it has these small caramel filled chocolates (kinda like a mini-Rolo). I could swear the chocolates had small salt chunks in them. It was incredibly good!
At the Scoopin’ Moose you can jazz up your waffle cone by making it chocolate dipped or even make it an Epic cone (with sprinkles, Skor or peanuts).
In addition to standard ice cream, you can also enjoy soft serve ice cream, milkshakes or even ice cream floats!
Canmore’s Best Ice Cream #3: Scoopin’ Moose Location
Best Ice Cream in Canmore #4: Sweet Revenge Location
4. Lovely Ice Cream
While most of us were busy binge-watching Netflix during the COVD lockdowns, local restaurateur Conor was busy learning to make ice cream. And from these efforts, Lovely Ice Cream was born.
What sets Lovely Ice Cream apart from the other Canmore ice cream shops is that they make all of their ice cream in small batches, using only real food as ingredients. Lovely Ice Cream uses no chemicals, artificial colouring, or added stabilizers in its ice cream. Despite this commitment to making their ice cream as healthy as possible, they maintain a very reasonable price point.
You’ll be amazed at the creativity of the ice cream flavors on offer. We loved our Chai ice cream, while our daughter loved her ‘Jupiter’ ice cream (an orange and chocolate flavor Conor created with his nephew). Our son went with a classic ice cream sandwich – vanilla ice cream between two homemade chocolate chip cookies.
Lovely Ice Cream has a year-round location in Elk Run, but most visitors to Canmore will find the Lovely Ice Cream cart located on Main Street just outside Stonewaters. Conor is very friendly – stop by and say hi and see what creative flavors of locally produced ice cream are on offer today.
Best Canmore Ice Cream #4 – Lovely Ice Cream Cart Location
5. Cacao 70
Regular visitors to Canmore know that traffic and parking can get pretty bad on weekends during the summer. If you’d like to avoid going into downtown Canmore, trying swinging into the Shops of Canmore for ice cream at Cacao 70.
We knew we’d enjoy this Canmore ice cream shop when we learned the motto at Cacao 70 is “A State of Chocolate“! We visited Cacao 70 for the sole purpose of this review of the best ice cream shops in Canmore, but we are dying to go back and try their amazing breakfast menu!
The selection of ice cream at Cacao 70 is somewhat limited with roughly 5 flavors to choose from, but you’ll enjoy a generous portion of ice cream at a good price. A double-scoop of ice cream on a waffle cone at Cacao 70 is cheaper than a single scoop on a waffle cone at Scratch Rare Ice Cream.
Although we are ranking Cacao 70 number 6 on our list of the best ice cream shops in Canmore, don’t take this as being substandard ice cream – the quality and flavor of our ice cream at Cacao 70 was very good.
The Best Ice Cream in Canmore #5: Cacao 70 Location
6. Beaver Tails
Next on our list of the best ice cream shops in Canmore is Beaver Tails. We all know that people visit Beaver Tails for their famous Canadian pastries, but they also offer a decent selection of ice cream as well.
We enjoyed our ice cream from Beaver Tails, but to be honest, there was nothing special about it.
The Best Ice Cream in Canmore #7: Beaver Tails Location
7. Dairy Queen
We’d normally exclude a chain restaurant like Dairy Queen from a “best of” list, but let’s be honest with each other… Peanut Buster Parfaits are delicious.
Dairy Queen is also a great option if you are looking for ice cream in Canmore, but don’t want to battle traffic downtown. Dairy Queen is conveniently located on Bow Valley Trail, not far from gasoline alley just off the TransCanada Highway. If you are heading back to Calgary from Banff and want a quick & easy ice cream, Dairy Queen is a good option for you.
Canmore’s Best Ice Cream #7: Dairy Queen Location
Ice cream always tastes better after a good walk. Why not try one of the best walking trails in Canmore, then reward yourself with a waffle cone from one of the best Canmore ice cream shops!
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Dan Brewer, a life-long Alberta resident, calls Canmore home along with his wife and two kids. He is the co-owner of Travel Banff Canada, where he gets to share his passion for the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Dan, along with his family, love being outdoors doing one of the many activities they enjoy in the mountains: hiking, mountain biking, paddleboarding, skiing, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing.
When he's not in Canmore enjoying one of his favourite local hikes, you can find him hoping on a plane to explore a new country with his family or working on one of their other two travel sites: Family Can Travel and Baby Can Travel.