This profile is in active compilation — some details are awaiting a cited source.

Melt Box Ice Cream (styled MeltBox on the Iron District’s vendor roster) is a Kansas City ice cream operation built around the Melt Monster — a scoop of ice cream sealed inside a cinnamon-glazed sweet bun, pressed warm and finished with cream cheese frosting, toppings and sauces. It runs as a food truck serving the KC metro for private and public events, and holds a container stall at the Iron District, 1599 Iron St in North Kansas City. Owners as of July 2025 are Michael Mullally and Dylan Wahlen; Feast Magazine’s launch-era coverage names Justin Tanner and Chris Carrier as the founders.

Description

Melt Box Ice Cream is a Kansas City ice cream business whose identity rests on a single item: the Melt Monster. In the company’s own words it is “our free form sweet bun, sliced in half, stuffed with your favorite scoop of ice cream, warm pressed / sealed, and topped with cream cheese frosting,” dressed with the customer’s choice of toppings and sauces.12 Feast Magazine’s launch-era feature described the concept’s mechanics and lineage: a cinnamon-roll-like dough with the cinnamon and some sugar taken out, crisped in a custom panini press around the customer’s ice cream, then glazed with cream cheese frosting — a sweet-bun ice cream sandwich format the founders traced to Orange County, California.3

The business is truck-first. Its own FAQ is written for event customers: most of its service is private catering — weddings, corporate events, birthday parties, reunions, school events, festivals — with public outings announced through @meltboxkc on Facebook and Instagram rather than fixed on a calendar. Most flavors are gluten-free and one or two dairy-free options ride on the truck at events.4 Alongside the truck, Melt Box holds a container stall at the Iron District in North Kansas City, where the venue’s own vendor roster lists it under Food with the line “Bold ice cream flavors partnered with unique toppings and presentation.”5 Its Yelp listing carries the Iron District address, is categorized under Food Trucks, and was still accumulating reviews in June 2026.6

Ownership has changed hands at least once. Justin Tanner and Chris Carrier are named as the founders in Feast Magazine’s launch coverage;3 KCTV5’s July 2025 segment “KC’s Ice Cream Shop on Wheels” introduces Michael Mullally and Dylan Wahlen as the owners.7 No source located documents the handover itself — when it happened, or on what terms..

Last verified: 2026-08-13 · menu_status: partial · Source: Melt Box’s own expanded menu PDF, hosted on and linked from the current meltboxkc.com homepage2 · Confidence: Medium

Price caveat — first-party but dated. The only price list Melt Box publishes is its own “Expanded Melt Box Menu 2023” PDF, still linked from the live homepage as the site’s [MENU]. The prices below are reproduced from that first-party document exactly as printed; the document is dated 2023 and the prices may since have changed. No aggregator (Grubhub, DoorDash, Uber Eats, MenuPix and the like) was used for any price on this page. The company’s Square storefront (meltboxkc.square.site, “Melt Box KC E-Commerce,” used for pint orders and gift cards) renders its catalog in JavaScript and returned no retrievable item or price data on 2026-08-13.

Scoops (first-party 2023 price sheet)2

  • Single — $6.00
  • Double — $7.00
  • Triple — $8.00
  • Extra toppings or sauce — add $1.00

Melt Monster (signature)12

  • Melt Monster, in a cup — $8.00
  • Build: sweet bun sliced and stuffed with a scoop, warm-pressed and sealed, topped with cream cheese frosting; comes with a choice of flavor plus 2 toppings and 2 sauces

Ice cream flavors2

Old Fashioned Vanilla · Zanzibar Chocolate · Cookie Dough · Peanut Butter Cookie Dough · Peanut Butter Cup · Ultimate Oreo · Brownie Cascade · Salted Caramel · “This $&@! Just Got Serious” · Sticks & Stones · Yippee Skippee · Munchie Madness · Kitty Kitty Bang Bang · Strawberry Cheesecake · Blueberry Cheesecake · Banana Cream Pie · Caramel Apple Pie · Birthday Cake · Cherry Chocolate Chip · Mint Avalanche · Pistachio Nut · Matcha Green Tea · Fat Elvis · Blue Moon · Superman · Cotton Candy Twist · Sunday Funnies · #BasicBean · Exhausted Parent (bourbon-spiked espresso) · Lemon Meringue (limited time) · Pumpkin (seasonal) · Root Beer Float (seasonal Italian ice) · Raspberry Lemon (non-dairy, non-fat Italian ice) · Carrot Mango (non-dairy, non-fat)

Toppings2

Cap’n Crunch · Chocolate Chips · Chocolate Sprinkles · Cinnamon Toast Crunch · Crushed Oreos · Frosted Flakes · Fruit Loops · Fruity Pebbles · Peanuts · Gummy Worms · Heath Bar · Kit Kat · Lucky Charms · Marshmallows · M&M’s · Pistachios · Animal Crackers · Rainbow Sprinkles · Reese’s Pieces · Salted Pretzels

Sauces2

Chocolate · Peanut Butter · Marshmallow Cream/Fluff · Strawberry Jam · Caramel · Local Honey

Dietary

Most flavors are gluten-free; one to two dairy-free options are carried on the truck at events; the menu also lists non-dairy, non-fat Italian ices (Raspberry Lemon, Carrot Mango).24

Notes and gaps

  • The menu PDF states that all ice cream is pre-made and ready to eat, and that ingredients cannot be removed or substituted.2
  • Several flavor names on the sheet carry ™ marks (This $&@! Just Got Serious™, Sticks & Stones™, Yippee Skippee™, Munchie Madness™), which indicates Melt Box serves at least some third-party-branded ice cream rather than churning everything in-house. The supplier is ****.

See also

Sources

Footnotes

  1. Melt Box Ice Cream — official website, homepage — asserts: business name “Melt Box Ice Cream”; the Melt Monster described as “a soft cinnamon glazed sweet bun, stuffed with a scoop of our super-premium ice cream, sealed and served with your favorite toppings and sauces”; food-truck operation serving the Kansas City metro with an event-catering focus; social handles @meltboxkc on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat; site sections The Truck / FAQ / Event Inquiry / Menu / Join Our Team / Pint Orders / Gallery; homepage [MENU] links to the 2023 expanded menu PDF and the site links to meltboxkc.square.site. (Accessed 2026-08-13.) ↩ ↩2

  2. Melt Box Ice Cream — official “Expanded Melt Box Menu 2023” PDF, linked from the current homepage — asserts: prices Single $6.00 / Double $7.00 / Triple $8.00, “Extra toppings or sauce — add $1.00,” and “Melt Monster in a cup $8.00”; build-your-own comes with a choice of flavor plus 2 toppings and 2 sauces; the full flavor, topping and sauce lists reproduced above; Melt Monster construction (“Our free form sweet bun, sliced in half, stuffed with your favorite scoop of ice cream, warm pressed / sealed, and topped with cream cheese frosting”); “All ice cream is pre-made and ready to eat. Ingredients cannot be removed or substituted”; ™ marks on several flavor names; seasonal and limited-time labels. First-party document, dated 2023 — prices may be stale. (Retrieved 2026-08-13.) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9

  3. Feast Magazine — “Melt Box Brings Sweet Bun Ice Cream Sandwiches to Kansas City” — asserts: founders Justin Tanner and Chris Carrier, in business together roughly a year and a half at the time of the article, both leaving day jobs; the sweet-bun ice cream sandwich format traced to Orange County, California; construction described by Tanner as cinnamon-roll-like dough minus the cinnamon and some sugar, crisped in a custom panini press around the customer’s ice cream and glazed with cream cheese frosting. Retrieval caveat: the article body could not be fetched directly by this session (repeated HTTP 429 from feastmagazine.com and a TLS handshake failure on the mobile mirror, 2026-08-13); the above is the content returned for this URL by web search and has not been read first-hand. Treated as provisional — re-fetch and confirm before the founder names or founding date are promoted out of. Mirror URL: m.feastmagazine.com ↩ ↩2

  4. Melt Box Ice Cream — official FAQ page — asserts: the majority of service is private events, with public outings announced via @meltboxkc on Facebook and Instagram; all bookings routed through the site’s Event Inquiry form; menu at events is scoops in a cup plus the Melt Monster; “Many of our flavors, if not most, are gluten free,” and 1–2 dairy-free options carried on board at events; event costs quoted per event rather than published as a flat fee; caters weddings, corporate events, birthdays, reunions, school events and festivals. (Accessed 2026-08-13.) ↩ ↩2

  5. Iron District — official Vendors page — asserts: “MELTBOX ICE CREAM — Bold ice cream flavors partnered with unique toppings and presentation” listed under Food on the venue’s current vendor roster, with its outbound link pointing to meltboxkc.com; confirms Melt Box is a current Iron District tenant as of the access date. (Accessed 2026-08-13.) ↩

  6. Yelp — Melt Box Ice Cream, 1599 Iron St, North Kansas City, MO — asserts: street address 1599 Iron St, North Kansas City, MO; phone (816) 226-7429; category “Food Trucks”; 34 reviews and 53 photos, listing updated June 2026 (evidence of continued activity). Used for address, phone and activity only — not for any price. (Accessed 2026-08-13.) ↩ ↩2

  7. KCTV5 — “KC’s Ice Cream Shop on Wheels,” July 15, 2025 — asserts: Melt Box Ice Cream owners Michael Mullally and Dylan Wahlen appeared on the station’s segment; the Melt Monster is the business’s signature item. (Accessed 2026-08-13.) ↩

See also

  • Registry
Categories

On the record — ks.city/registry/meltbox-ice-cream · record updated 2026-08-13