Meghan Keneally The chef Anthony Bourdain earlier today.

The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck had a famous fan on Tuesday afternoon, with celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain stopping by while filming a segment for his new television show.

The truck, which has been around since 2009 and has more than 19,300 followers on Twitter, was parked on 17th Street and Broadway when Mr. Bourdain stopped by for his yet-unaired Travel Channel show, tentatively titled “The Layover.” Fans watched as the chef waited for 15 minutes like the rest of us food plebeians to get his hands on a “Salty Pimp” cone (vanilla soft serve with dulce de leche and sea salt, dunked in chocolate coating). According to a crew member, the show will air in either November or January.

Meghan Keneally The new location.

The truck’s business will soon be expanding to include The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop, a storefront which is scheduled to open in mid to late July on Seventh Street between First Avenue and Avenue A. The shop is currently preparing for the opening, and owner Bryan Petroff said that while no firm opening date is set, he expects it in the next month or so. When the store was announced in May, it was scheduled to open in mid-June, but that date was clearly overshot.

“What’s great is that we’ll be able to start to make more of our own ice creams and sauces and toppings in store because we’ll have a full working kitchen,” Mr. Petroff said.

The new toppings and sauces that Mr. Petroff mentioned are joining an already-varied list; the truck is known for it’s creative use of olive oil with sea salt, wasabi pea dust, and bacon as toppings to traditional soft serve.

The shop is named after the duo’s truck, which first started traveling the streets of New York in 2009. The name itself, much like the use of the word “queer” by many in the gay community, is an attempt to de-stigmatize the phrase.

Mr. Petroff said that his partner and the truck’s co-owner, Doug Quint “made a kind of off-hand remark on the truck’s Facebook page, saying ‘You should come follow the adventures of me and my big gay ice cream truck!’ And it just stuck!”

Meghan Keneally The unicorn mural in the new shop was painted by Sam Simon and will feature 4,000 rhinestones.