What they offer
Kilwins offers a number of sweets made in-house, including fudge, waffle cones and caramel corn, said co-owner Amber Kurkowski, who manages the shop alongside Michelle Baran. Leftover caramel from creating caramel apples—one of the store’s most popular items—is made into individually sold caramel chews.
Other popular desserts include chocolate-dipped Oreos, housemade marshmallows and brittle. Kilwins has 32 different flavors of ice cream including seasonal flavors that rotate, Kurkowski said. For a limited time, customers can pop in to try the All-American Two Berry Pie flavor.
“That one's really popular,” Kurkowski said. “It's a vanilla ice cream, and it has different berries in it, like you would have in a berry summer pie.”
Every Kilwins franchise owner can create their own ice cream unique to the town they’re in, Kurkowski said. The San Gabriel Mud flavor is a Georgetown special, and includes vanilla ice cream, chocolate chips and rich caramel.
Residents and visitors can stop by the shop seven days a week or find Kilwins participating in local community events like the Georgetown Swirl and Blazin’ Beer Crawl.
Who it affects
As a way of giving back to the community, Kilwins donates fudge to charity auctions. Kurkowski said they partner with local teachers and the YMCA to give away free ice cream scoops to top-performing students.
Additionally, Kilwins hires special needs team members from Brookwood in Georgetown and a Georgetown High School program.
“Team members that are special needs ... make our caramel chews for us, which is really cool,” Kurkowski said. “That’s been our way of helping the community.”
What’s special about it?
When Kurkowski and Baran found an old photo of what their shop used to look like while at The Williamson Museum, the team hired local muralist Sarah Blankenship to paint the scene of horses and wagons inside the shop.
“I thought it would be really neat to have a mural that shows the history of the building,” Kurkowski said. “We took our inspiration from the original historic photo.”
The Kilwins store is a stop for historic walking tours and The Williamson Museum’s ghost tour. Every Christmas at midnight, a lady in red is said to appear on the fire escape stairs outside of Kilwins’ building, Kurkowski said.
“There’s a lot of really cool history about this building,” Kurkowski said.
- 120 W. Eighth St., Ste. 101, Georgetown
- www.kilwins.com
