Two new food and beverage businesses are opening in Whatcom County this summer, bringing a New Zealand-style ice cream cart to Bellingham and a European-inspired taproom to Lynden. The two openings reflect different corners of the county's food and drink scene and speak to a broader appetite among local entrepreneurs for concepts that import ideas from other places and adapt them to the Pacific Northwest context.
Kiwi's Cones, a mobile ice cream vendor, is now operating out of the Roosevelt Kulshan Brewery -- commonly known as K2 -- at 1538 Kentucky St. in Bellingham. Business partners Daton Nestlebush and Joey Watermeyer purchased the ice cream cart, which formerly operated as Scream, in June and have rebranded it around a style of frozen treat that Watermeyer first encountered while living in New Zealand for six months.
What Is New Zealand-Style Ice Cream
Real fruit ice cream, the New Zealand-style treat that gives Kiwi's Cones its identity, blends frozen fruit with vanilla ice cream to create a soft-serve style confection. The process involves folding actual frozen fruit into the ice cream base rather than using syrups or artificial flavors, which produces a result that is denser and fruitier than conventional soft serve, with a texture that sits somewhere between a smoothie bowl and a traditional cone. The fruit flavor comes through more directly and the overall product is noticeably less sweet than American-style soft serve, making it popular with people who find traditional frozen desserts overly sugary.
The style has a devoted following in New Zealand and has attracted significant attention from Pacific Northwest visitors who encounter it across the border in Squamish, British Columbia, where the renowned shop Alice and Brohm has drawn mountain bikers and road trippers for years. The Squamish connection is particularly relevant to Bellingham, a city with a large and active outdoor recreation community whose members frequently travel the Sea-to-Sky corridor between Vancouver and Whistler. Alice and Brohm became something of a post-ride ritual for many Pacific Northwest cyclists, and the appetite for the product in this market was already established before Kiwi's Cones opened.
Watermeyer and Nestlebush were among those visitors, discovering the style after mountain biking trips to Squamish. When the Scream cart came up for sale, they recognized it as a ready-made platform for launching their concept without having to build a mobile unit from scratch. The rebranding from Scream to Kiwi's Cones involved not just a name change but a shift in the product offering and the story behind the business.
The cart had its trial run at the Northwest Tune-Up Festival, where Kiwi's Cones sold more than 780 ice creams over the course of the weekend. That figure represents a strong debut by any measure for a brand-new mobile food operation and validated the concept for the Bellingham market. Festival crowds skew toward exactly the demographic that tends to respond well to novel, slightly premium food concepts, and exceeding expectations at a festival setting is generally a positive signal for a cart-based business that will subsequently operate in a lower-traffic weekday and weekend schedule.
From now on, the cart will be stationed at K2 Brewing on Kentucky Street, with hours of 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday, 4 to 9 p.m. Friday, and 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The cart is also available to book for private events, which opens an additional revenue stream beyond the brewery location. For the most current hours, including any schedule changes, follow Kiwi's Cones on Instagram at @kiwisconesbham. K2 Brewing, located in the Roosevelt neighborhood near downtown Bellingham, is a well-established destination that draws both locals and visitors, giving the new cart a built-in customer base through the summer season. Whatcom Transportation Authority routes serve the Kentucky Street corridor for those coming without a car.
Sirens Cove Social House Coming to Lynden in August
In Lynden, a new gathering place called Sirens Cove Social House is set to open in August. The locally woman-owned business is inspired by the European tradition of neighborhood cafes and public houses, places where the emphasis is less on rapid table turnover and more on creating a comfortable environment where people feel welcome to stay for a second drink and a longer conversation.
That model differs meaningfully from most American bar and restaurant concepts, which are typically designed around maximizing revenue per seat rather than maximizing time spent in the space. The European pub tradition prioritizes the social function of a shared drinking space, which tends to produce a different atmosphere and a different kind of regular customer base.
Sirens Cove will offer craft beer, cider, and seltzer in a social atmosphere designed to encourage connection rather than just quick service. The taproom is aimed at filling what its owners see as a gap in Lynden's social dining landscape: a place that is neither a full restaurant requiring a sit-down meal nor a rowdy bar, but something closer to a living room for the neighborhood where a person could spend an evening without feeling pressure to order more food or move along.
Lynden, located about 10 miles north of Bellingham along the Nooksack River floodplain, has a strong community identity rooted in its Dutch heritage and agricultural economy. The town draws visitors for events like the Northwest Raspberry Festival and has a growing selection of locally owned businesses along its main commercial corridor on Front Street. The addition of a dedicated social taproom expands the options available to Lynden residents who currently travel to Bellingham for that kind of gathering place.
A Summer of New Businesses in Whatcom County
The openings of Kiwi's Cones and Sirens Cove are part of a broader pattern of small business activity in Whatcom County this summer. The region's combination of tourism traffic, a growing permanent population, and a relatively active small-business culture has supported a steady flow of new ventures in food, beverage, and retail. Both new businesses reflect a trend toward concepts with a clear identity and a specific niche rather than generalist offerings trying to appeal to everyone.
For entrepreneurs, the summer season offers the best window for launching a food or beverage concept in Bellingham and surrounding communities, when foot traffic peaks and outdoor gathering is at its height. Kiwi's Cones in particular is well positioned to capitalize on warm afternoons at K2's outdoor beer garden setting, where a cold and fruit-forward frozen treat pairs naturally with the brewery atmosphere and extends the appeal of the location to customers who are not drinking alcohol.
Those interested in Whatcom County's small business scene can find resources for new ventures through the Bellingham Whatcom County Tourism and economic development network, which supports local entrepreneurs with marketing visibility and connections to regional programs. The Small Business Development Center at Western Washington University also provides free advising services for entrepreneurs at any stage of business development.
