The company began in 1927 with the Cadwalader family in Criccieth who ran a general store.
The Cadwaladers Ice Cream story began in 1927. The Cadwalader family lived in Criccieth in Gwynedd, North Wales. There they made and sold their closely guarded secret recipe, vanilla ice cream, from the window of their Criccieth general store. Cadwaladers Vanilla Ice Cream has a unique taste and it enticed customers from miles around. Childhood memories from Criccieth holidays continue to bring customers back year after year. The list of ingredients in the original handwritten copy of Hannah Cadwalader’s secret recipe include;
6lbs of ‘’shan’t tell you’’
and
‘’a great deal of love and care’’
The Company, including the secret recipe and the actual Criccieth store, originally changed hands in the 1980’s. Improvements in food safety laws (such as no more raw egg!) meant that a slight adaptation to the secret recipe was necessary. To ensure that the unique flavour remains, the recipe is regularly and continuously taste tested by loyal customers, including some who started enjoying Cadwaladers vanilla ice cream in the 1930’s. Cadwaladers became a huge part of the culture on the Llyn Peninsula and the reputation of the Ice Cream spread far and wide. In addition to the original Criccieth store, Cadwaladers can now be found in Porthmadog and Betws Y Coed in North Wales, Mermaid Quay Cardiff Bay, Barry Island and Porthcawl in South Wales, Tenby in West Wales and at Trentham Gardens in Staffordshire. Cadwaladers is now owned by the Brierley family who, together with our team of 100, operate the eight stores. Cadwaladers famous vanilla ice cream is always available in our bright and cool stores as well as a wide choice of other ice cream flavours. Always popular in the summer, but also popular in the colder months, Cadwaladers provides a warm, comfortable and cosy setting for our customers to enjoy. Besides being specialist ice cream stores, we also serve our exclusive and specially developed blend of coffee in a range of bespoke hot drinks, a delicious and unique hot chocolate blend and our speciality teas together with a wide range of cold beverages, including smoothies, frappes and fresh ice cream milk shakes. We also have an exciting and delicious expansive range of ice cream sundaes and, in most stores, a delicious breakfast, brunch, lunch and afternoon food menu. Our “dog friendly policy” means we love to welcome our customers well behaved dogs. Cadwaladers truly caters for all tastes for all seasons.
Our mission
is quite simply to be the place customers come to relax, to enjoy time with friends and family or to have a meeting, read the paper or just have time alone.
In partnership with our customers, our employees, our community and our environment, our goal is steady growth, annual profitability and the ability to become the place to come for the food, the coffee, the ice cream, the best job prospects… but most of all the greatest customer service given by the greatest staff.