Let’s Chill — ranked No. 2 ice cream shop in US — to receive small business award

Ricardo and Cristina Braga’s dislike of the ice cream industry — but love of ice cream itself — drove them to open their own nationally recognized shop in Coral Springs.

Three years after quietly opening Let’s Chill, which has been named the No. 2 ice cream shop in America by Yelp, the elementary school sweethearts and U.S. Army veterans are set to receive the Coral Springs Small Business of the Year Award at the Coral Springs Coconut Creek Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Oct. 24 gala.

“It’s an amazing honor to be recognized by other business owners,” Ricardo Braga said. “So our Yelp recognition comes from our customers, and this one now comes from other fellow business owners in our area recognizing us as a top business. For us, it just kind of goes to certify all of the hard work that we put in and lets us know that we’re on the right track.”

The couple aimed to make the highest-quality ice cream and keep artificial dyes out of their products, only adding pigment to their ice cream with natural ingredients such as turmeric, purple carrot, beets and annatto.

Cristina Braga was working as a nurse on the COVID floor of a hospital during the pandemic, then once cases began falling, the couple decided it was time to pivot and start a business. They kept circling back to ice cream, despite the fact that neither of them had experience in the food industry.

“The more research I did into ice cream, the more I disliked the ice cream industry, because I didn’t feel like they did the right things for the customer,” Ricardo Braga said. “Seemed like a lot of them were focused on the money, and not a lot of them focused on quality and providing great service to the customers, and we wanted to open up a place that would change that.”

They learned how to make ice cream during a two-day workshop in the Tampa Bay area, then less than eight months later, they were ready to open their doors at their Sample Road storefront between Coral Springs Drive and University Drive.

After one 36-hour marathon ice cream making session, they said they went home, took a nap and woke up eager to open their store for the first time.

“We decided, ‘You know what, let’s not tell anybody. Let’s just go open up our doors,’” Ricardo Braga said. “It was like 6 o’clock at night on a Tuesday or something like that, and we opened up our door, and we got, like, one or two customers that came in.”

But one person posted about the shop on social media, and then “it was just non-stop from there,” according to Ricardo Braga.

“It was just kind of magical at first,” he said. “And I can only attribute it to God kind of guiding us in the right direction. We’re very big into our faith.”

While word of mouth helped the business along, Let’s Chill was then named the second-best ice cream spot in America in 2023 — and again in 2025.

They serve up ice cream flights and a selection of boozy flavors, but the fan favorites include the classic cookies and cream, as well as their “cookie monster,” which is colored with spirulina, the blue-green algae.

“When you can’t get a service and product anywhere else that resembles what we have, I think that’s what makes them come,” Ricardo Braga said.

Cristina Braga said they couldn’t speak about the success of the business without recognizing their staff.

“We get amazing reviews on our product, but also on our customer service,” she added. “And that goes a lot to the amazing kids that we have, and most of them are high school kids, and so they’re juggling school, but I mean, they’re just amazing kids and we love them like family.”

She said the most rewarding part of their business venture has been the relationships they built with the community, from customers showing photos of their kids to bringing in homemade flans.

“I know it sounds a little cliche when you say, you know, our customers are family, but we really, truly resonate with that,” she said.

Her husband said the best part is “the smiles.”

“We see people when they’re happy, we see people when they’re sad,” he said. “Everybody comes for ice cream, and they could be at either extreme. But the thing that really is so rewarding is that no matter what extreme you’re at, once you taste the ice cream, it always puts a smile on your face.”

The couple said visitors from across the country and internationally are now drawn to stop by the No. 2 ranked ice cream shop in America when they’re visiting South Florida or stopping over for a cruise.

While the journey has been rewarding for the business owners and parents to four kids, including a baby, they said their main challenge has been dealing with the rapid growth.

In addition to their store, they also cater and operate a food truck. But they got the opportunity to move their location to the new development project happening down the street on the corner of Sample Road and University Drive, and they’re taking it.

“We do have customers in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade that make the long trek once a week, and they always leave us a little note, ‘Can you please open up a shop in Boca or Delray or Miami?’” Ricardo Braga said. “So in short, yes, we do have plans to grow, and we’re trying to set ourselves up so that we can be successful when that growth does happen and we can provide the same quality service at that location.”

They expect to be at their new location around March or April.

This story was originally published October 10, 2025 at 4:22 PM.