These Crispy Cones Are Straight Out Of Shark Tank 🦈🍦

I don't usually drive out to Centennial for dessert. But when something comes through Shark Tank and lands in the metro, I want to see if the hype survives the real world — or if it's just a good pitch that doesn't translate to an actual product people want to eat twice.

Crispy Cones is the concept: grilled dough cones, made fresh, filled with whatever you're after. The location is out on Smoky Hill Road, which puts it squarely in strip-mall suburbia. That's not a complaint, just context. If you're already out that direction, this is an easy stop. If you're driving specifically from downtown, factor that in.

What You're Actually Getting

The cone itself is the whole point here. It's not a waffle cone pulled from a bag — it's dough that gets grilled on a spindle, which gives it this layered, slightly crispy, warm texture that's genuinely different from anything I'd had before. It reminded me vaguely of a chimney cake, if you've ever had one of those at a European Christmas market. The outside has a little char, the inside stays soft, and then you fill it with ice cream or whatever combination you're building.

I went with a sweet filling — ice cream packed in while the cone was still warm — and the contrast worked. Cold ice cream, warm cone, some crunch on the outside. It's a pretty good combination. My wife got something with Nutella involved and seemed pretty happy about it, which is usually a reliable signal.

What Works and What Doesn't

The product is genuinely good. It's not "we have a great story" good, which is what a lot of Shark Tank businesses turn out to be. The cone actually delivers something you can't get from a standard scoop shop. The texture is different enough to be worth trying, and the fact that you're eating a warm, fresh-made cone instead of something that's been sitting out matters.

The format does mean there's a small wait while your cone is being made. That's fine — it's part of how it works — but if you show up expecting the speed of a soft-serve window, recalibrate your timeline. This is more of a sit-with-it experience than a grab-and-go one.

Denver has had some interesting innovation in this space lately. There's a local kid who invented something called the Drip Drop — an edible waffle ring designed to catch drips on a regular cone — which shows there's a real appetite here for people rethinking the ice cream cone format. Crispy Cones is a different answer to a similar question: what if the cone itself was actually good?

Getting Out There

The Centennial location is at 20269 E Smoky Hill Road. Parking is a strip mall lot, so that part is easy. I'd go on a weekday afternoon if you can — weekends at dessert spots like this tend to build a line, and the made-to-order process means the line moves slower than it looks.

It's a good spot if you have kids, mostly because the whole process of watching the cone get grilled on a spindle is a little bit of a show, and kids pick up on that. But I'd go back without kids too, so take that for what it's worth.

The Straight Take

If you've been curious about Crispy Cones since seeing it on Shark Tank, the Denver location is worth a trip — especially if you're already out in Centennial or Aurora. The cone lives up to the premise, which is more than I can say for a lot of concepts that make it through a TV pitch. Go once, see what you think, and I'd be surprised if you didn't finish the whole thing before you got back to your car.