The Baked Bear
The top and the bottom do not have to match, and whatever you build goes into a hot press before it reaches you.1
Why go
This was the chain's first Texas store, opened 12 May 2018 at 211 Walter Seaholm Drive, around the corner from Trader Joe's.1 The build runs cookies, brownies or doughnuts as the base, more than thirteen ice creams between them, and a press at the end.1 Warming the cookie softens the crumb and starts the ice cream melting at the interface, so the two behave as one thing instead of a scoop between two discs.
Order this / avoid
- Mismatch the cookies. The shop lets you take one kind on top and another underneath, which is the whole reason to build rather than buy. Oatmeal, chocolate chip and snickerdoodle on the classic side; funfetti cake, red velvet and macadamia nut on the other.1
- Ask for Bear Batter if you want the house ice cream rather than cheesecake, cookie dough, Rocky Road or salted caramel.1
- Roll it in something, because the toppings come with the price of the sandwich. Fruity Pebbles, brownie bits, mini chocolate chips, Heath Bars, sprinkles or Oreo crumbs, or a slather of Nutella, whipped cream or hot fudge.1
- Avoid: dawdling. Pressed warm, it is a race.
What locals & experts say
- CultureMap Austin covered the opening, verbatim:
As fellow high-rise dwellers, let us at CultureMap give you a productivity tip: take an afternoon break to eat an ice cream sandwich.
1 That is a recommendation from an approved Austin desk rather than a scored verdict. - I haven't found a review that judges the cooking. Darcie Duttweiler's Austin Chronicle frozen-dessert roundup of 16 July 2026 does not carry it either.
Good to know
- What it is: a built-to-order ice cream sandwich counter, from a chain that started in Pacific Beach, San Diego. The from-scratch cookie claim is the brand's own account of itself.2
- Hygiene: Austin Public Health scores the kitchen 94, inspected 3 June 2025, register name
Baked Bear, The
. The previous reading was 93 in May 2024. Austin runs a 100-point demerit scale where higher is better and 70 is the failing line, so this is not a finding.3 - Same address, different businesses: the register also holds Trader Joe's and Malibu Poke at 211 Walter Seaholm Dr under separate permits. Their records say nothing about this counter.
- Hours and prices: not published in a source read here.
Verdict
could-visit — RE-SCORED 2026-08-08. A San Diego chain whose first Texas store opened here on 12 May 2018, around the corner from Trader Joe's. You pick the base from cookies, brownies or doughnuts, take a different one top and bottom if you want, choose from more than thirteen ice creams, roll the whole thing in Fruity Pebbles or Heath Bars or Oreo crumbs at no extra cost, and it goes through a hot press on the way out. CultureMap Austin recommended it when it opened. No critic has scored it, and the from-scratch cookie claim is still the brand's own.