Lemon Dogs Ice Cream

We're Lemon Dogs, a small batch plant-based ice cream maker. Formerly a meatless burger shack, popsicle maker, and lemonade stand at Shubie Park.

Along with ice cream, we also have take-home sauces, quesos, freezie packs, and more available in our online store.

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Take Home Instructions & ingredients

A Brief History of Lemon Dogs

2025 - Digital Cookbook

Plans to publish a downloadable cookbook with Lockside Canteen staples are in the works. Publish date not yet solidified.

2024 Sept - The end of Lockside Canteen

Our time at the Lockside Canteen at Shubie Park comes to an end. But there's still more to come for Lemon Dogs! Plant-based ice cream and Canteen sauces will be available periodically in our online store: keep an eye on Instagram stories 🙂

2024 Jan - Plant-Based Ice Cream!

In the Winter, before re-opening at Shubie, we began creating house made nut-free plant-based ice cream (with no coconut flavour!)

2021 May - Plant Burgers!

We went 100% vegetarian with nearly everything having vegan options, thanks to Impossible Foods coming to Canada

2017 May - Real Tacos

We switched our menu to authentic Mexican-style tacos, inspired by our travels throughout Mexico from Jalisco to Oaxaca to the Yucatan.

2016 May - The Lockside Canteen Opens

We opened at the Lockside Canteen in Shubie Park and finally put the "Dogs" in Lemon Dogs! With the original goal being to offer lemonade that isn't too sweet and hot dogs that aren't just a wiener on a bun, this completed the duo!

2015 - Summer Pop-Up at Humble Pie

We shared a space with Humble Pie, offering lemonade and our hand-made ice pops

2014 - All the Markets

Lemon Dogs was at Alderney Market, the VG Market, Forum Market, Wolfville Market, and a few times at Musquodoboit and Beaver Bank

2013 - Alderney Market

Our first ever summer started outside at Alderney Landing selling lemonade at a music event and transitioned to the Saturday market shortly thereafter.

We're rated 5/5 stars – based on 50 opinions on Facebook! We'd love it if you'd leave a review on Google, Facebook, Trip Advisor, or Yelp.

Common Questions

What's a "Lemon Dog"?

Why don’t you have a year-round restaurant?

We've had our opportunities to do so, but we were set on being seasonal only. Running a restaurant is hard and we’re awed by all the people that choose to do it full time. When we still had the canteen, we preferred having a break and coming back to a new season.

Plus, we do have another full time business that occupies the rest of our time. Happen to need Canadian web hosting?

Krista was the driving force behind every single creation at Lemon Dogs. After 9 years at the Lockside Canteen (11 since our start at Alderney Market) it was simply time for a change. She will soon be an architectural engineering technician.

I have allergies or dietary preferences. Do your products contain _______?

Please check with us before placing your order and we can tell you if and when we have used any given allergen. Here's some general rules of thumb:

Gluten: Our efforts to completely sanitize our prep zones before and after using products with gluten have been successful, however we still would not recommend purchasing our products for those with celiac as it is not a dedicated gluten free kitchen, nor do we have a dedicated gf zone.

Dairy & Eggs: These are most definitely not used in the creation of our plant-based ice creams and sauces, with the exception of dairy-queso. We do everything we can to separate vegan items from any dairy, but it is a very small kitchen so there is always a chance of cross contamination.

In the event there is any non-plant based foods in an item we will mark it clearly.

Seeds & Nuts: Sesame seeds are used pretty frequently in our prep kitchen, as well as other nuts.

Are you environmentally friendly?

We try to be as environmentally friendly as we can be. It's been a core principle of Lemon Dogs since it’s’ very beginning in 2013 when we started with bio-plastic cups and paper straws (before the ridiculous backlash).

Our goal at the canteen is to make all of our packaging environmentally friendly, but not everything is available in such a form. Here's a breakdown:

Condiment Containers are all plastic/PET recyclable.

Ice Cream Lids are plastic/PET recyclable.

Ice Cream Pints are paper compostable.

Ingredients

Our ice creams are all plant based. Unlike regular ice cream, we don't suffer from the environmental impact of raising and milking cows, which is surprisingly significant: from methane output to water and food inputs.

TIP: Bio Plastics are biodegradable, but they must be tossed in the garbage. They are typically made of corn or legume by-products and most are certified to decompose at least 80% of their structure within 1 year in optimal aerobic composting facilities.

Halifax's waste management facilities only handle short-term composting. They've told us that they aim to turn their compost into usable garden materials in under 6 months. Since these plastics take longer than that to degrade and the city does not have facilities to force them to biodegrade faster, they must be tossed in the garbage.

In the garbage, bio plastics will still biodegrade, but will likely take longer since the conditions will be less-optimal than with other materials typically found in composts.