This Milton ice cream shop is saying goodbye

Milton’s Crazy Cat Creamery owner Heather Goodwin scooped her last dollop of cotton candy ice cream on Wednesday at 5941 Berryhill Road Unit J. The ice cream shop, which offered a variety of regional ice creams made form Cammie’s Old Dutch Ice Cream Shoppe, has permanently closed.

Goodwin said her initial goodbye in a Facebook statement this month, thanking her loyal crew of customers-turned-friends for their business, even through a difficult past couple of months.

“First and foremost, I want to THANK EVERYONE of YOU!,” Goodwin wrote. “The love that you have shown me and Crazy Cat Creamery has been nothing short of just AMAZING! I have made friendships that will last a lifetime and have so many sweet memories with you and your families…With a very heavy heart, I do have to make the decision to close Crazy Cat. Wednesday, June 26th will be our last day open to the public.”

As financial difficulties increased and the shop was not producing enough revenue to pay rent, she began to realize keeping the shop open was unsustainable.

“I can’t afford to keep digging myself in a hole,” Goodwin said Wednesday. “I’m glad for all the support people have given me. I’ll miss a lot of people.”

Goodwin’s journey with Crazy Cat Creamery started in downtown Pensacola where she opened her first space in March 2022, relocating to a larger space in Milton six months later.

Across the two locations, the theme remained the same ? cat merchandise and lots of pastel pink. By Wednesday, much of the décor that gave Crazy Cat Creamery its sense of place had been sold for customers to display in their own homes.

Playing into the feline theme, she even had a Crazy Cat Cheesecake flavor that Cammie’s crafted exclusively for them. She picked the flavor because of how unique it was locally.

“Nobody has a cherry cheesecake,” she said.

The Milton ice cream shop was the backdrop of many birthday parties and the "happy place" for many of her customers. She offered eye-catching specialty items like the “Every Child’s Dream,” which contained a golf ball size scoop of all 24 of her ice cream flavors. Some days, there weren’t enough seats in the house to accommodate everyone.

“It’s hard to pick one single moment, there have been so many good ones,” Goodwin said. “Everybody will not be forgotten.”

While the shop will be closed on Wednesday, Goodwin will still be selling merchandise from the store, and can be contacted on the Crazy Cat Creamery Facebook page.

“Come in and get your piece of Crazy Cat to keep,” Goodwin said.

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This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Crazy Cat Creamery permanently closes in Milton