Azucar Ice Cream Company has served hand-made Cuban and tropical ice cream from a small corner shop at 1503 SW 8th Street in Little Havana since July 2011, when founder Suzanne "Suzy" Batlle opened the doors with a menu built on the flavors of her childhood. Fifteen years later, the shop's café con leche and mamey scoops draw a line of tourists and regulars along the sidewalk of Calle Ocho, and the shop has become one of the strip's most recognizable storefronts.
Who founded Azucar, and why ice cream?
Batlle spent roughly two decades working in banking before leaving to build the business, according to the shop's own account and profiles of the company. The inspiration traces to her Cuban grandmother's homemade sundaes, a family ritual that Batlle later reworked into a commercial kitchen recipe. She founded the company in July 2011, per the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau's business listing, and the shop has operated from the same Little Havana address ever since.
What is on the menu?
The counter sells artisanal ice creams and sorbets in flavors drawn from Cuban and Caribbean kitchens: café con leche, tres leches, mamey, mango, and seasonal variations that rotate through the year. The Cuban-coffee scoop is the shop's signature, an espresso-and-dairy version of the colada that anchors café culture across the neighborhood. Cones, cups, and pints-to-go share the case, and the sorbets give the tropical fruit flavors a dairy-free option.
How did the shop become a Little Havana landmark?
Three things compounded. First, the flavor identity: an ice cream menu that reads like a Cuban breakfast table set the shop apart from generic dessert options on the strip. Second, location: 1503 SW 8th Street sits within the walkable core of Little Havana's commercial district, near the theaters, cigar shops, and cafés that anchor the neighborhood's tourist foot traffic. Third, recognition: the shop has appeared on the official Little Havana business map, was recognized by Dade Heritage Trust for its role in promoting the historic district, and drew national attention with a segment on ABC's "Made in America." None of that, Batlle has said in interviews, replaced the basic arithmetic of a small shop on a busy street: keep the scoops consistent, and people come back.
What happened during the pandemic?
When tourism collapsed in 2020, the Calle Ocho shop's customer base thinned with it. Batlle's response, as reported by the Miami Herald in 2020, was to open a second location near Dadeland Mall at 11429 S Dixie Highway in Kendall, in part to keep revenue flowing to support the original store. The move kept the Little Havana shop staffed through the downturn. Both locations continue to operate, with the Calle Ocho shop remaining the flagship.
Related stories: El Rey de las Fritas Keeps Little Havana's Cuban Frita Tradition Frying · La Camaronera, Allapattah's Family Fish Market, Wins National Recognition.
What does Azucar mean for the neighborhood's business mix?
Little Havana's commercial strip runs on a mix of long-standing Cuban cafeterias, cigar manufacturers, and newer businesses that sell to visitors. Azucar occupies the space between the two: a locally founded company with a traditional product, priced and packaged for the pedestrian traffic that festivals like Viernes Culturales and Calle Ocho Music Festival bring to the corridor. Its longevity is itself a data point in a district where rents and turnover challenge small food businesses. For entrepreneurs studying the strip, the shop's arc — a career change, a single storefront, a signature product, a second location only when the first was threatened — is a case study in how a niche food business holds a corner.
How does the shop fit into the Calle Ocho visitor economy?
The strip's foot traffic comes in waves: tour groups in the morning, festival crowds on weekends, and a steady local base in between. A dessert counter sits at the end of that chain. Visitors who have eaten at a cafeteria, watched the cigar rollers, and caught a domino game at Máximo Gómez Park finish the walk with ice cream, and families from Kendall or Hialeah make the drive on weekend evenings. Azucar's positioning inside that flow is deliberate. The flavors give out-of-town visitors a story to take home, Cuban coffee turned into ice cream, while the price point keeps the neighborhood's own families in the line. Businesses that survive on Calle Ocho tend to serve both audiences at once, and the shop's fifteen-year run suggests it has found that balance.
What challenges face dessert shops on the strip?
The same ones that shape every small food business in Miami-Dade, concentrated: seasonal swings in tourism, summer heat that thins foot traffic, rising commercial rents along the corridor, and a crowded field of competitors selling variations of the same tropical palette. The pandemic made the stakes explicit. When travel stopped in 2020, the visitor-dependent Calle Ocho store lost most of its customer base within weeks, which is why the Kendall expansion mattered. The shop's response set a template for other corridor businesses: diversify the geography of revenue rather than abandon the flagship, and keep the product line narrow enough to execute consistently day after day.
The federal Small Business Administration publishes guides to funding and licensing for food businesses at sba.gov, a starting point for owners weighing the same move Batlle made in 2011.
When should visitors go?
The shop operates on extended daily hours, and the line is shortest on weekday afternoons before the tour buses arrive. Festival weekends along Calle Ocho bring the longest waits. Hours change seasonally, so visitors planning a stop should confirm current times with the shop before traveling.