Innocent by Name, Intentional by Design: Inside East Vancouver’s Ice Cream Sandwich Favourite
At first glance, Innocent Ice Cream feels like a business built entirely around joy.
There are towering ice cream sandwiches, colourful scoops, soda floats, milkshakes and miniature versions (for anyone who wants another dessert without admitting they have room for another dessert). The company mascot is a Boston terrier dressed as a cow. Even the name suggests that nothing too serious could possibly be happening here.
Look closer, however, and it becomes clear that very little about Innocent Ice Cream happened by happy accident.
Founder Asacia Biln has spent the past 11 years building a company in which the recipes, branding, service and sense of fun all reinforce one another. The result is an East Vancouver ice cream parlour that feels polished enough for customers to ask whether it is part of a chain, yet personal enough that nearly every detail can be traced back to Asacia’s family.
Her connection to ice cream sandwiches began long before there was a company attached to them. Asacia made them with her mother as a child and continued making them for friends as she grew older. Eventually, orders began coming from people she did not know.
Those unexpected requests arrived while she was considering what to do after business school. She had imagined herself following a corporate career path, but an internship quickly convinced her otherwise. The growing demand for her ice cream sandwiches offered another possibility.
Rather than attempting to build the finished business immediately… Asacia started with a tricycle.
In a small gluten-free kitchen in Kitsilano, Asacia prepared the sandwiches which she would then load onto a tricycle and sell at Kits Beach. The response was strong. Enough to justify the next iteration. After the first season came a food truck, followed in year three by Innocent Ice Cream’s first permanent shop on Main Street.
Each stage could have replaced the one before it. Instead, the tricycle and food truck remain active parts of the company, appearing at weddings, corporate events, film productions and private celebrations. That’s not just reach, what began as a practical way to test an idea became a collection of distinct experiences, all belonging to the same recognizable brand.
That brand has been carefully designed.
Asacia found that developing the recipes came naturally but building the company around them gave her the opportunity to apply the skills she had studied in business school. The branding is playful but consistent, extending from the shop and packaging to the merchandise, catering vehicles and insulated bags used to help customers transport their sandwiches home.
The clearest example of how personal that identity remains is Memphis.
Memphis was the family’s Boston terrier (a highly treat-motivated dog who lived to be 18). When Asacia’s daughter was young, she liked dressing him in costumes. One of those costumes happened to be a cow suit. When the family began discussing ideas for the company’s branding, it was her daughter who had the answer. A graphic designer transformed the family photograph into the character and now Memphis appears throughout the business.
It’s funny, memorable and commercially effective. More importantly, it belongs unmistakably to them.
The same combination of personality and precision shapes the menu. Innocent Ice Cream does not rely on preassembled frozen slabs. Cookies are baked fresh throughout the day before being paired with firm scoops of handmade ice cream. With five cookie varieties and approximately 18 dairy and plant-based ice creams available at a time, customers can create around 90 different sandwich combinations.
There are established favourites, but customization is part of the experience. Customers can combine different cookies, mix ice cream flavours and apply the same freedom to milkshakes and affogatos. Those unwilling to commit to a full-sized sandwich can order minis, while layered pints, ice cream cakes, take-home boxes and classic soda floats extend the idea beyond its original format.
Many of the flavours are built around nostalgia. Maple walnut ice cream is paired with an oatmeal cookie for a distinctly Canadian combination. Root beer floats and ice cream cakes recall familiar childhood celebrations.
The difference is that far more people can participate in those moments at Innocent.
The cookies are gluten-free, while the baking and cones are also vegan. Dairy-based ice creams sit alongside an extensive selection of plant-based alternatives. Customers can walk in needing both gluten-free and dairy-free options without being pushed toward a single reluctant substitution.
That inclusivity began with two of Asacia’s friends who have celiac disease. At the time, gluten-free products were often marketed as compromises, defined more by what had been removed than by how enjoyable they were. Asacia wanted customers to fall in love with the sandwiches before thinking about their dietary credentials.
That decision still influences how the shop presents itself. Innocent does not overwhelm guests with gluten-free messaging at the door. People who need to know can order with confidence, while everyone else encounters the product on its own terms.
The approach has created a destination for customers travelling from across the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island and the Fraser Valley. The demand prompted Innocent to introduce branded cooler bags after visitors began asking how they could get large orders home without losing them along the way.
It may just be a small operational detail, but it illustrates the company’s larger instinct: listen carefully, solve the problem and make the solution feel like part of the brand.
That attentiveness also shapes the service. Asacia built the original business alongside her daughter, who remains involved as the store manager. Many early employees came from their circle of friends and family, creating a naturally warm atmosphere that the company has worked to preserve as it has grown.
The current shop at East Hastings and Lakewood places Innocent within a rapidly evolving section of Hastings-Sunrise. New residential developments and restaurants have joined long-standing neighbourhood businesses, creating an increasingly compelling pocket of East Vancouver. For Innocent, the move provided more than a new address. It created a permanent home capable of bringing the full company together.
The shop, tricycle, truck, mascot, menu and service culture now feel like obvious parts of the same idea. That is the quiet achievement behind all the colour and nostalgia.
Asacia Biln’s Innocent Ice Cream works because it never feels calculated, even though it has been considered at nearly every level. Its identity is polished without becoming impersonal. Its inclusive menu is purposeful without becoming restrictive. Its growth has been ambitious without losing the family story at its centre. And, of course, the product is terrific.
The name may be Innocent, but the brand has always known exactly what it is doing.
See you in the shop soon for a an ice cream bar cheers among friends!
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