Little Bees Italian Ice

Awesome gelato. They mix flavors with every size. Great little place in the middle of Suttons Bay. Worth checking out.

Amazing!!! The best ice cream that I eat in the state.
Likely you found this ice cream while traveling in Suttons Bay.

Love this place! Delicious coffee and gelato ! Came here for a coffee break from birthday shopping and the owner gave me a birthday gelato with a candle! So sweet!

This is real gelato and sorbetto, made right at their shop. Because I was with three others, I was able to sample vanilla, pistachio, coffee, and cherry gelato offerings. Our favorite was their cherry, tart and not too sweet. All had the perfect light consistency and no hint of ice crystals. They do not use artificial bright colors as so many other gelato makers tend to do in order to attract attention. I have no doubt that the other flavors are equally high-​quality. My only disappointment is that they are not open very late in the evening during tourist season, but with outstanding product, I’m willing to adjust my schedule to theirs :)

This place is a wonderful tucked away gem. The sweetest service and delicious bites. Grab something as you walk through town!

Just fantastic! Such fresh fruit flavor and the perfect amount of sweetness. Coffee was great too!
I’d seen the sign for this little shop before but never stopped in because my son is allergic to dairy and too many issues come up when we try and eat out. We stopped in this past weekend because I needed something to drink. I spoke to the women at the counter and she was incredibly helpful and friendly. She assured me that they use all separate utensils to avoid cross contamination with dairy. So we gave it a try and was so pleased.
We got watermelon Italian ice and raspberry-​pomegranate sorbet. Both just blew us away with how fresh and flavorful they tasted! I also got an iced coffee, which was Higher Grounds, and it was perfectly brewed. I can easily see us becoming regulars here and want to let everyone I know how great this place is.
The shop is in a beautiful location, nestled right in the center of downtown Suttons Bay. Look for the sign and follow the little path past café tables and flower beds until you find the shop. We recommend you take your purchases around behind the shop at the corner of Jefferson and N St Mary’s St. There is a small park there with a creek, waterwheel, picnic area and tennis courts. Try this place, you won’t be sorry you did :)

lately I’ve been pondering the idea of a ginger beer float with every root beer float I order… well ponder no more because this joint serves em up! Fun selection of dairy-​free sorbets that you can mix with sparking water. Super refreshing! Enjoyed the décor and ate our picnic lunch on the little tables outside.
Thanks for a great afternoon!

This is some of the best ice cream I have ever had. Lovely people, great food, and cute place. I recommend the chocolate!

After a gorgeous weekend camping at DH Day national park in Glen Arbor with friends, our sun-​kissed cheeks were longing for something cool and refreshing. Many tourists lapped up ice cream along the streets of fishtown and Glen Haven, but we held out for Little Bees– and boy were we glad we did!
I couldn’t decide between the coffee or pistachio gelato; when the rosy-​cheeked owner said: why not try both? I knew I had come to the right place. Both were delicious, very creamy and satiating. My partner had the tart cherry Italian ice which tasted like it was made with… Wait for it… Real tart cherries. No artificial syrup flavoring a here! Also, the frappé (iced coffee with salt caramel gelato was amazing. Highly recommend this cute little shop.

First time experience was great! They have floats, gelato, Italian ice, and sorbet. We really live gelato and since our regular place was closed for remodeling (Ambrosia) we really wanted some so we Unilocaled gelato in the area. The ratings we saw gave us high hopes and they were met. The couple that serviced us were very nice. My choice here was the Lemon Italian ice. They have a recommendation board and this was recommended to try with the mango sorbet and raspberry. Two thumbs up on it. We even had our picture taken by the lady. She was so nice to ask us if we would like one. If you are in the area a must stop for a nice treat.

This place has the best ice cream in northern Michigan and the sweetest owners that work there too. We live in TC, but we drive out to Suttons Bay quite often just to go to Little Bee’s (seems silly to drive all that way for ice cream, but it’s so worth it and it really doesn’t take that long to get there). I have sampled most of the flavors (they give very generous samples and are always happy to let you try before you buy), and I’ve never found any flavor to be bad but there are some that I prefer to others.
My personal favorite combos are lemon Italian Ice with vanilla gelato (and sometimes some raspberry pomegranate sorbet added too). I wasn’t sure about that combo at first, but it’s like a lemon creamsicle and so delicious. The lemon Italian ice is especially refreshing on a hot day. My other favorite combo is chocolate, strawberry and pistachio gelato. The sea salt caramel, coffee and pumpkin (seasonal) gelato are also wonderful, but so far I’ve only had samples of those flavors.
Regardless of the flavor though, all of them taste so real and obviously completely homemade with all natural ingredients (I asked and they are sweetened with cane sugar, not with gmo-​laden beet sugar or corn syrup — yay!) plus they are really quite lightly sweetened so they just hit the spot and don’t make you feel sick from the fake sweetness that you get from, for example, Moomer’s «award-​winning» ice cream (which is anything but homemade).
I believe that the hours posted on Unilocal are for the summer season. Right now I noticed that they are open until 6pm Tues-​Thurs and Sun, closed Mon and open until 9pm on Fri and Sat. I can’t recall the opening time, but I’m thinking somewhere around 11am. The owner mentioned that they were open until Jan 1^st this year and then opened up for the summer May 1^st so my guess is that it will be something like that again this year.
Definitely do not miss this place if you are in the area (and take the scenic drive out here just to try it even if you’re not in the area)!

We were on a mission to find ice cream for our granddaughter one evening… the other ice cream places in the area were closed… to our relief this little store, tucked away in a corner of a downtown building, was open. Very delicious gelato and ices… our party enjoyed pistachio and salted caramel gelato and tastes of the fruit ices. The proprietors were also very friendly and helpful.

Cutest place EVER. Found it while craving ice cream after dinner when the other ice cream shops in town were closed, now it’s a must visit when I’m in SB. The owners are so nice you can’t believe they’re real people. The kind of shop you feel warm and fuzzy about spending your money there. Go there! And bring everyone with you.

A few of the times I’ve tried to visit this shop, they have been closed. After eating some Chinese food across the street on a recent evening, this place was finally open! Hooray!
I had tastes of the sea salt carmel and pistachio gelatos. I liked the pistachio a bit more, the sea salt was good too though. I went with my old reliable though (surprisingly, not hazelnut), sorbet. Love me some sorbet. The flavors they had available this evening were raspberry pomegranate and mango, I actually preferred the raspberry pom, but both were absolutely yummy. It was 3.00 for a small, and that was plenty big enough. Thank you so much!

This place is great and it reminds me just a bit of Willy Wonka; «The strawberry tastes like strawberries», «The raspberry tastes like raspberries» and so on. The shop is enchanting with delightful servers and cool vines outside and flowers along the path leading up. If we lived in Sutton’s we would be in there every day.

Now that I’ve found them I can’t stop going! Sometimes twice in one day!
The Watermelon Italian Ice tastes like a frozen watermelon! The Sea Salt Caramel Gelato was made from house-​made caramel! It tastes like fruit, not the chemical trying to be the fruit! And not too sugary either!
We are serious foodies and can’t get enough of this specialty shop that leaves everyone else wishing they were half this delicious! Great service, clean and quaint spot that you need to try!

Wonderfully sweet lady. We asked if the coffee was fresh and she honestly reported that it wasn’t all that fresh but gladly made us a few fresh cups. A very cute little nook

Why are you going to regular ice cream places when you can get Italian ice and gelato made right at Little Bee’s? Tart Cherry, Watermelon, Mango, Pineapple and Coconut Ice and Sorbet are brain-​freeze cold and made with real fruit, right here. (I wondered how they got the watermelon flavor so spot-​on, until I spotted the watermelon on the counter) I will take this high quality frozen stuff over soft serve with sugar goo and plastic sprinkles any day of the week. This crafty woman is the Willy Wonka of frozen treats!