Founded in spring 2021 by chefs Mazzy Winters and Richard Ridout, Lil’ Tiger Ice Cream began as a community-focused project during the pandemic. With roots in overcoming hardship—including past experiences with homelessness—they envisioned an inclusive, feel-good gathering space. Their namesake basset hound, Lil’ Tiger, became both mascot and inspiration, giving rise to a shop that even offers free doggy treats for visiting pups.

Handmade, Small-Batch Quality

What sets Lil’ Tiger apart is their craft approach: ice cream is made in-house in small batches using locally-sourced dairy, top-tier extracts, plant-based colorings, and ingredients like Theo Chocolate seattlerefined.com. This ensures vibrant, artisanal flavors—from classics like Madagascar vanilla and mint chip to inventive offerings such as P.O.G. sherbet, Dariy Free Ube Coconut, and Cappuccino Irish Cream just to name a few.

Warmth, Service & Vibe

Reviews highlight the friendly, clean, and charming atmosphere with outdoor seating and personal service from owners and locals alike. Yelp accolades call it the “best chocolate ice cream we’ve ever had”; Google reviewers rave about the dairy-free ube and speedy banana splits for families.

Neighborhood Favorite

With over a thousand positive reviews across platforms, Lil’ Tiger ranks as the top ice cream spot along Lake City Way. Publications like Seattle Refined describe it as a destination for both humans and dogs, praising its year-round appeal with diverse and delicious flavor rotations.

Our Website:
www.liltigericecream.com

Location:
12348 Lake City Way NE, Seattle, WA 98125

Hours:
Open daily, 2 PM–10 PM

It was time for a change…

To keep things fresh and exciting, our menu features handcrafted flavors that rotate weekly and monthly. Because of this, it’s been challenging to keep the online menu perfectly in sync with what’s in the shop. To help bridge that gap, we’ve asked 3GEES Media, our web developer to create a custom flavor database for our WordPress site, making it easier for us to update flavors more quickly and keep customers informed about what’s currently available.

Rich Ridout, Lil Tiger Ice Cream

The issue…

Previously, we entered flavors manually using the WordPress editor and arranged them into multiple columns. However, this approach made it difficult to alphabetize the flavors or organize them by categories such as “hard-packed,” “sorbet,” and “dairy-free.”

We would often misspell flavors, or forget flavors all together that were no longer on our menu. Worst yet, sometimes we might bring back a flavor and need to enter the information all over again…there had to be a better way.

The resolution…

Develop a database that allows the client to easily enter each flavor’s name, flavor profile description, and status (active or inactive), as well as categorize flavors by type (e.g., “hard-packed,” “sorbet,” “dairy-free,” and more) through a custom plugin.

The system enables the menu to be displayed on the WordPress site using shortcodes, with options for multiple columns, sorting in ascending or descending order, and filtering by ice cream classification as well as responsive display for smaller screen sizes.