Vivoli Ice Cream Parlour was founded as Vivoli Dairy back in 1929. The family lived in Pelago, a town located between the plains and the mountains. Times were hard for all Italians, and one of the three brothers, Serafino, decided to try his luck by moving to Florence. He opened the dairy shop on Via Isola delle Stinche in the popular district of Santa Croce.
The area was full of craft stores of all kinds, and the dairy soon became a pleasant gathering place to have coffee every day and buy whipped cream on Sundays. The arrival of his brother Raphael gave further impetus to the business, which in 1932 decided to try its hand at ice cream.
Of course, there were no refrigerators yet, and to make ice cream one had to resort to buying ice, which came from the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, and to be exact from a place called Saltino, where there were large ponds that filled with water in the winter and froze in the cold. The people in charge of this work would go into action with pickaxes and split it into large slabs that were immediately stowed in special rooms underground where they would be stored until the summer, night time, when they would be taken to the city and sold to those who needed them. Thus began Raphael Vivoli’s work as an ice cream maker.
During that time, the Saltino resort, was not only famous for ice production, but was a popular vacation spot, and those who could afford it, to escape the heat of the city, moved to the many hotels in the Saltino. The Vivoli family did not miss the opportunity to introduce its ice cream to non-Florentine vacationers as well and in 1936 they opened, for the summer period only, a branch of the Florentine dairy, in Saltino.
Things are going well for the Vivoli family in the 1960s; their passion for good ice cream, their scrupulous selection of raw materials, and their enthusiasm in presenting the finished product mean that the ice cream shop is becoming increasingly busy and the quality of its ice cream increasingly appreciated. Everything seemed to be dramatically interrupted on November 4, 1966; the Florence flood wiped out much of the city but Piero Vivoli and his family, with their usual tenacity, rolled up their sleeves and after only two weeks were able to reopen the store.
In the 1970s, Vivoli’s ice cream parlor was a favorite meeting place for many: Italian and foreign students, artists, motorcyclists, and entire families would meet at Vivoli’s for after-dinner and late-night ice cream. American, British, French, and German tourist guides unbeknownst to the Vivoli family, who realized this little by little, began to point to the ice cream parlor as a must-visit place when visiting the city; first for the goodness of the ice cream and then for the cheerful atmosphere there.
The passion for ice cream was also passed down to the daughters of Piero Vivoli and his wife Simonetta, in fact, around the 1980s, as soon as they finished their studies Patrizia and Silvana entered the store, both with two quite different roles, silvana holding the reins of the workshop while Patrizia devoted herself to both administration and sales at the ice cream counter. Very few years later Patrizia’s husband, Simone, also joined the team, devoting himself to both ice cream making and pastry making, especially wedding cakes.
In June 2015, the Vivoli family decided to try its hand at a new experience and open a branch across the ocean, specifically in Orlando, Florida. The ice cream shop is located in Disney Spring where, welcoming the tastes of American customers, it offers ice creams with the distinctive flavor that sets Vivoli apart.
In 2016, Giulia, Patrizia and Simone’s youngest daughter, decided to follow in the family footsteps, realizing early on that her greatest passion is the world of pastry and ice cream making by bringing a breath of innovation inside the workshop.
In 2018, after four years of overseas experience in the restaurant world first in London then in Australia, Lorenzo, the oldest son, also joined the team and immediately found his niche by becoming a bartender and barkeeper.
In March 2020, the arrival of Covid put a strain on everyone, but Vivoli’s ice cream shop quickly worked to get through even this bad patch by starting with home deliveries and selling ice cream through the famous “wine hole.”
As of today, the Vivoli Gelateria in Florence is a company of nearly 20 employees who, day after day delight Florentines and non-Florentines alike with their specialties and with the same passion that, for the past 95 years, has never failed or changed.
In May 2023 Vivoli’s ice cream shop became even better known because of their coffee affogato. A specialty that has been on our menu since the 1960s but has reached the height of popularity thanks to a post on social channels, attracting the attention of more than 20 million users, decreeing this cup of cream ice cream with hot espresso the most famous affogato in the world.
