Ben Van Leeuwen visited Nashville for the first time in the summer of 2023. It was a hot July, and standing in a Lower Broadway bar holding a cold can of beer, listening to a live band, he said he had a passing thought that is likely common among Music City tourists: “This is it. This is America.”
Van Leeuwen didn’t fly from New York to Nashville for country music tourism. He took the trip to scout potential locations for his eponymous New York-based ice cream company, Van Leeuwen.
Flash forward to 2025, and the brand has opened three Nashville ice cream shops in under a year. The latest debuted Aug. 28 in the Neuhoff District overlooking the Cumberland River…