Ice Cream Arbitrage!

Enjoy some superlative dessert while planning for your future.

Ice cream at the new La Glace parlour on Vancouver’s West Side is superlative, maybe even the best in the city. The room, tucked away off 16th and MacDonald is one of the prettiest rooms in town.But it’s god-awful expensive.I learned this the hard way last Saturday when I zipped in to buy two pints on the way to a dinner party and, $31 later, was on my merry way. To be clear the ice cream—one Bananas Foster, one Pretzel Cremeux—was extraordinary (and I had a sample of Le Tigre, a tiger tail spinoff, that was also awesome). But $31? And West Siders wonder why the rest of the city ribs them. To be fair, the true price was $29, because each pint had a $1 deposit on the lovely container it came in. I mean, really lovely.So lovely that I got to thinking—that’s got to be worth more than a $1. Look at it!For reference, this is what Earnest Ice Cream’s containers look like; they also charge a $1 deposit. Dullsville!So, here’s the plan: I spend the next few months trying every flavour of ice cream La Glace has to offer—Muscadine, Earl Grey, Match Noir—but I don’t return a single container. I hoard them, like so:Then in the coming months, La Glace will realize the error of their pricing ways. They’ll either be forced to head back to their glass supplier for some pricey re-ordering or they’ll have to dip their toe into the shady secondary market for their container. A market entirely controlled by yours truly.And that’s how I’m scoring a lifetime supply of the city’s finest ice cream.