Wirral ice cream shop hopes to scoop another award

John and Diane Hughes, founders of The Ice Cream Shop in West Kirby, will head off to London in November for the finals of the UK Business Awards, hoping to bring back the Micro Business Of The Year Award back to Wirral.

It's been a busy year of awards for the shop, which has already been honoured with Family Business of the Year and Newcomer (Family Business) at the Business Awards UK.

John Hughes opened the Ice Cream Shop West Kirby in 2019 (Image: John Hughes) This week it was officially announced that the business had won E2 Media's award of Excellence 2024 Best Ice Cream Shop. It was also confirmed that the business is a recipient of the prestigious accolade of achievement for 'demonstrating exceptional achievements within the industry'. 

Other honours this year are a UK Small Business Award and National Family Business 2024, Food Retailer 2024 for Merseyside and Small & Mighty Business.

John said: "We received our best ice cream shop award a couple of weeks ago before E2 Media announced it publicly. 

"We were then informed by them that we had received our prestigious accolade of the achievement award for demonstrating exceptional achievements within our industry after winning our other Family Business Awards.

"We are thrilled to have been chosen for these awards and to be Named Best Ice Cream Shop is just incredible - being highlighted among the top organisations in our industry is an honour."

Mr Hughes continued: "It's been an amazing year for our little ice cream shop and want to thank everyone who has visited us and to everyone who has helped us.

"We are also in London in November for the finals of the UK Business Awards and hopefully we can bring the Micro Business Of The Year Award back to the Wirral".

One of the creations on offer at The Ice Cream Shop in West Kirby (Image: Justin Hopper) The shop on Grange Road invites customers to challenge John to make anything they wish -with some creations mouth-watering and others described as just 'plain crazy'.

John and Diane opened the little shop in 2019 and are said to have developed such a reputation that people travel from far and wide to enjoy their delights.

The shop has a revolving and ever-changing range of fascinating flavours of ice creams including dog ice cream, as well as almost 40 different types of bubble tea — something that John says has also been going down a storm.

But what is said to make the business 'truly unique' is that John actively encourages people to challenge him to make bespoke flavours.

Some have been extremely popular, such as ice cream similar to Twister ice lollies and ice cream similar to Vimto, whereas some have been rather ‘interesting’ — such as a bacon and maple syrup flavour for a local business.

John and Diane Hughes opened the West Kirby Ice Cream Shop in 2019 (Image: courtesy of Justin Hopper) John said recently people are loving The Ice Cream Shop 'as much now as ever'. He spends hours exploring supermarket aisles and experimenting with weird and wonderful flavours — some recent ones such as The Pensby Pig, one similar to Terry’s Chocolate Orange and one similar to Twister ice lollies have been flying out.

In its confirmation that the Ice Cream Shop West Kirby had won Best Ice Cream Shop of the Year 2024, E2 Media said this week: "We feel that The Ice Cream Shop West Kirby is a worthy winner of our award.

"What makes The Ice Cream Shop West Kirby stand out from their peers in the industry is John Hughes invites customers to challenge him by creating completely bespoke creations crafting joyful memories with every scoop.

"The challenge for John and the team at The Ice Cream Shop West Kirby in the future as their reputation continues to grow and the demand for their services increases will be to maintain the same high standards that have given them so much success in recent years.

"Given their track record we think this is something they will achieve and that The Ice Cream Shop West Kirby is a name you’ll be hearing much more of in the years to come."