We had so much fun with linocut posters for our 14th Birthday along the #14 bus route. And then someone said – hey, it’s Bytown’s 200th birthday.

So let’s double the fun!

We still kept it old-school with hand-printed posters made with a hand-carved linocut stamp!

We made 200 posters for 200 randomly selected bus stops around our 200-year-old beautiful city, and we’ll put 5 up every day. These posters can be redeemed for a free single scoop at 102 Fairmont (right beside the Gladstone/Fairmont bus stop!).

Find a poster at your bus stop, bring it on in for a free cone to 102 Fairmont, located at Fairmont and Gladstone on the #14 route!

There’s a hidden bonus too about the hand-printed posters: they are made with wildflower seed paper so once you redeem your poster you can plant it in your garden to keep the celebration growing for years to come. Or leave it with us, and we’ll make sure someone plants it!

It’s a Bytown birthday bus stop extravaganza! Oh, and there are a few posters that spell Bytown with e – find one of those and we’ll also enter it in a draw for a free Bytowne movie membership!

Happy 200th Bytown!

PS – What to do if you find a Happy Birthday Bytown poster!

1. First – bring it to 102 Fairmont and get your free cone!
2. Second – tell the team member whether or not you’d like to keep your poster and plant it!
3. Third – Plant your paper! Instructions below

Plant me, I will grow into a Wildflower How to plant the paper? STEP 1: PREPARE YOUR POT Fill your pot 2/3 full with good potting soil. Tamp down the soil and add more if necessary. You want the pot to be firmly full, but not packed. The paper can be planted indoors or outdoors, so you get to choose according to the temperature and conditions at the time of planting. STEP 2: PLANT THE PAPER Take your plantable paper and cover the paper in the prepared pot with the soil. Spread a 1/8″ layer of soil over the seed paper and tamp down gently. STEP 3: WATER DURING GERMINATION After planting the paper in your pot, give it a good soak. You want the soil and the paper to be nicely damp but not swimming in water. During the first 10 days, keep the paper moist at all times. STEP 4: CARE AFTER GERMINATION Once sprouts appear, continue to keep the paper moist but be careful not to over water. Once plants appear, water as needed.

1 – The Ice Cream 4 Breakfast on a Saturday time! Come on down to 102 Fairmont starting at 8am on Sat Feb 7 and get freshly made waffles (and yes gluten/free vegan option too) and top it with your choice of ice cream for breakfast flavours and our custom store-made toppings. Wear your PJs and get a free hot chocolate or coffee!

2 – The Original Breakfast in a Box! If good things come in threes, then it’s a good day to make Ice Cream for Breakfast an icy breeze with an Ice Cream for Breakfast Box!

Choose three pints. Then choose three packs of waffles (they come in packs of two). Then choose three toppings. Order here.

From there, we pack it all into a handy and dandy breakfast box that you can pick up or have delivered to your door. On top of that, ordering the breakfast box saves you a wee bit of dough!

Looking to add some merch-y pizazz to your ice cream for breakfast feast? Or a breakfast box and get 25% off a Merry Dairy keychain, a Trash Panda patch or an official Ice Cream for Breakfast Mug for you to sip your coffee as others wolf down their waffles and ice cream.

Looking to get a smaller amount of pints, waffles and toppings? Then order a la carte at shop.themerrydairy.com!

3 – The “Crate” Big Canadian Breafkast! In the Crate Big Canadian Breakfast, it’s a cornucopia of fives – five pints, five waffle two-packs and five all-natural toppings! Order here.

It’s for a breakfast for a gang of at least 10, family and friends, or just perfecto if you want to celebrate Ice Cream for Breakfast all weekend long!

And best of all, it comes in a great Canadian crate! Yes! Made in Brampton, ON, this Merry Dairy branded crate perfectly fits this big breakfast. Like the crate?  Keep it as part of your final purchase? Want to return it so that we can use it? We’ll refund your $25, or give you a gift card for $30 just for bringing it back!

And get the big crate, and you’ll receive at no extra charge a “crate” Canadian mini-crate that can hold all your desktop stuff, a Trash Panda patch, and an IC4B mug. Which makes it all extra-crate!

Merry Dairy Name Days are the most exciting time of year for us! With over 2,000 names submitted by our wonderful customers, we randomly select four names to celebrate during our Name Day events, whether in the last two weeks of July or our December Name Days. Watching people come together to celebrate their special day is pure joy.

One Name Day stands out vividly in our memory. A healthcare professional—a surgeon, I believe—shared how, as a child, he rarely saw his less common name on keychains or mugs. When his name was drawn for our Name Day, it meant the world to him. That day, he arrived with his family, celebrating both his name and that moment.

Over the years, many have asked if we could pre-select a name to coincide with a birthday, visit, or other special occasion. We’ve always kept Name Days a surprise—a unique moment that becomes a cherished memory. But when Heroes Circle, powered by Kids Kicking Cancer Canada in Ottawa, approached us with a special request to celebrate the lives of four special heroes, we could only say yes. And so Name Days begin as a celebration of the lives of four special heroes.

A Special Dedication

Content Warning: This section is about a celebration of life for children. Heroes Circle has provided grief resources for those who may need support:

• Children’s Grief Foundation
• Kids Grief

Below, we honor four extraordinary young martial artists who left us too soon.

We’re dedicating this special Name Day – on Thursday, July 17 —to Sophia, Tyson, Aiden, and Odin. These incredible children left lasting legacies of joy, love, and spirit through the things that mattered most to them.

Meet Our Heroes

Sophia (Symbol: Unicorns)

Sophia sparkled in her favorite colors, pink and purple, always ready with a clever joke and a contagious laugh. She adored her pink teddy, “Pinky,” loved swimming, and cherished time with her brothers. Her favorite foods were McDonald’s French fries and chicken nuggets.

Tyson (Symbol: Rainbows)

Known as the “tiny one with the huge personality,” Tyson loved dancing in high heels, hiding his mom’s keys, and sweeping with his broom. After hospital stays, he savored “red chicken” (General Tao) and enjoyed vanilla or lime sorbet ice cream. Fun fact: he didn’t like chocolate! His favorite person in the world was his brother, Braxton.

Aiden (Symbol: Lion)

Aiden had a bold, playful spirit. His favorite color was orange, and he loved peach juice, white chocolate chips, and Tiger Tail ice cream. One of his favorite memories was his first slumber party with his best friend, where he let her put full makeup on him! He was outgoing and never afraid to be silly.

Odin (Symbol: The Moon)

Odin was a true lover of sweets and ice cream, once finishing not only his own ice cream cone but his parents’ too! His heart was as full as his dessert bowl. He adored monkeys, sports, trees, and his favorite color was yellow.

Join Us in Celebration

If you share a name with Sophia, Tyson, Aiden, or Odin, we’d love to treat you to a free Merry Dairy cone on this special day – Thursday, July 17. Heroes Circle, powered by Kids Kicking Cancer Canada, will be at The Merry Dairy sharing information about their incredible work on that day. Anyone who donates to their organization at their information booth at 102 Fairmont will also receive a free cone to honor these powerful martial artists and support free therapeutic martial arts programs for kids in Ottawa facing chronic and critical illnesses.

Their symbols—a unicorn, a rainbow, a lion, and a moon—will be featured on every ice cream pint order made in their name when you choose to add a Heroes Circle label from July 17 to August 17th. 100% of your Heroes Circle donation will go to the Kids Kicking Cancer organization. 

Read more about these extraordinary heroes and their inspirational spirits.

Then visit Heroes Circle at The Merry Dairy at 102 Fairmont Avenue on these dates and times. Everyone who donates at the Heroes Circle Table at The Merry Dairy will receive a coupon for a free cone

Thursday, July 17 from 2:30 to 8:00 pm Name Day

Sunday, July 20 from 1:00 to 3:00 pm

Thursday, July 24 from 5:00 to 7:00pm

Sunday, July 27 from 1:00 to 3:00 pm

Friday, August 1 from 5:00 to 7:00pm 

Sunday, August 3 from 1:00 to 3:00 pm

Wednesday, August 6 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm

Tuesday, August 12 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm

Thursday, August 14 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm

Illustrations by Allie MacAllister

Sat Feb 1 8am-noon at 102 Fairmont

Three ways to enjoy!

(easy, peasy and breezy)

1 – The Easy Way! Come on down to 102 Fairmont starting at 8am and get freshly made waffles (and yes gluten/free vegan option too) and top it with your choice of ice cream for breakfast flavours and our custom store-made toppings. Wear your PJs and get a free hot chocolate or coffee!

2 – The Peasy Way! Order for takeout from your choice of ice cream pints, waffles and toppings or build-your-own Ice Cream for Breakfast Box with fresh frozen waffles you can reheat at home. Pick up your order from our takeaway window!

3 – The Breezy Way! Get your ice cream for breakfast order or build-your-own breakfast box and get it delivered right to your order by our PJ delivery crew! Order now for delivery Saturday morning, or get a head start and get your order delivered starting January 29!

Remember being a kid and making a new friend? Remember going to their house or them heading over to yours, and both of you being so excited just to hang out?

Well … our new friend is Dolly … no, not that Dolly, though she is an amazing friend to so many! We’re talking about Hello Dolly Pastries, located on Wellington West and Irving, where they’ve been making amazingly beautiful cookies with the most beautiful and fun designs for the past year.

And then we found out the most fun thing of all … we share birthdays!

And so, like all new friends, we are sharing our birthday with everyone!

And so beginning this Saturday, we will be celebrating this new friendship with a limited edition ice cream sandwich!

The sandwich will feature the Merry Dairy ice cream that you know and love, sandwiched between two of Hello Dolly Pastries, classic vanilla sugar cookies, one hand decorated – in an exclusive design for the big event! (And yes, there will be dairy & vegan/gluten-free options – of course, all peanut-free and nut-free!) 

So tune in to Hello Dolly Pastries Instagram page for the big cookie reveal, coming Wednesday, August 16th! 

You can get your own, beginning Saturday August 19th in person at either;

– Hello Dolly Pastries, located at 992 Wellington St. W, where they will have pre-packaged sandwiches to go

– The Merry Dairy, located at 102 Fairmont, where you can get your sandwich made on the spot with any ice cream flavour you like, including our special birthday cake frozen custard which we’ll be featuring all weekend long.”

A few years ago, Ottawa-based musician Allie Goodyear reached out to us with a jingle she wrote for The Merry Dairy. Titled, Ice Cream for All, it’s a catchy, fun way to describe the kinds of ice creams we make – all year round – nut-free, with dairy and vegan options. We loved the jingle so much, we turned it into this video! 

We love the idea of ice cream for all. After all, we started this business as nut-free because our son is peanut anaphylactic and his friend was the same, but with tree nuts. For both of them (and especially their parents!!) going to an ice cream shop was hit or miss – always asking, always checking, and worst of all, always hoping that the nuts weren’t there. So we said, let’s make the ice cream really really good and let’s make it peanut, tree nut and sesame-free.

So we were nut-free. Then people said to us – why not vegan – lots of allergy questions there too, and also an ever increasing part of ice cream choices. So we said, yes, and let’s make it really really good. So we tested and tested with coconut cream and milk, and came up with what we liked – premium vegan ice creams and sorbets!

And then came the hardest question of all – can you make sugar free? And at first we thought, maybe that might be too hard. There are a lot of reduced and sugar free ice creams out there, but finding one we liked was very hard.

Then we met Gabi – Gabi had done work on natural substitutes to sugar. And so, Gabi won the assignment – make a premium, delicious ice cream without adding sugar.

And so the tests began (and yes we should have photographed and recorded them all – lol)! And we found that by using a combination of natural sweeteners, we could reduce the sugar and keep the taste and the texture.

And so they came to be – dairy and vegan chocolate and vanilla flavours. The vegan flavours have the least amount of sugars per 3/4 cup serving – just 5g each. The dairy flavours, because of the cream and milk we use, have sugar counts of 15g. They are being offered at an introductory price of ten dollars – the same as our other pints.

But we hope we have solved the reduced sugar challenge, thanks to Gabi. And we can sing Allie’s song again without that feeling that we were missing a big part of the “for all” part.

Fathers, Dads, Father-figures and Dad-bods – it takes all kinds to be a Dad, and what is most important of all is that all Dads are kind. And whether it’s the kindness of Fathers, or the goofiness of Dads, or just that day when you recognize someone in your life who has been there when you needed them, offering support and Dad-splaining advice …

And if you’re in the need of some Dad-splainin’, allow us to introduce your Dad-bot, always willing to answer whatever question is thrown their way, and share a Dad-joke or two … And if you feel like sharing the Dad-bot’s answer, paste your question and answer in the comments below for a chance to win a Merry Dairy gift certificate!

And if you’re in need of a kind Dad gift of some kind, that is kind of fun, and available in all of our pint flavours, try a Dad pint label with your own custom Fathers Day message!

Want to go the extra mile? Get your order of pints, cakes, witha  local a greeting card delivered to your Dad’s door by The Merry Dairy soft serve truck, and book a short visit Dad and friends to purchase & enjoy a few cold ones … cones that is! Of course you’ll be treating Dad, and his friends can fend for themselves!

Dad not into gifts? We can help!