With a bright pink exterior as vibrant as its ice cream serving style, Galata Ice Cream and Desserts is the latest addition to a trio of Turkish businesses on Second Street in Belmont Shore.

The Turkish ice cream café will have its grand opening ribbon-cutting ceremony at 4 p.m. this Saturday on the corner of Second Street and Nieto Avenue.

It features 26 ice cream flavors along with baklava, Turkish delight and a range of beverages including Turkish coffee and tea.

However, the real fun lies with how the ice cream, known as Dondurma, is served. The unique treat made with salep flour allows the shop’s servers to perform various tricks and flips while dishing up a cup or a cone.

The inclusion of salep flour, made from orchid root, gives Turkish ice cream its hard, chewy texture and makes it more resistant to melting. The result is stickier than the average ice cream, with employees needing to churn the mixture before serving — sometimes for up to an hour before the shop opens.

Dondurma serving tricks include appearing to drop the cone, giving the customer’s nose a near miss with the ice cream and leaving the customer holding a decoy cone while the server pulls the actual ice cream and cone back.

Flavors include chocolate, vanilla and strawberry along with a variety containing real fruit such as kiwi, lemon, cherry, melon, mango and orange. Dairy-free options include black mulberry, cherry, strawberry and blackberry.

Mastic gum is also a must-try flavor, said store manager Akin Gulec. With a floral aroma, the main ingredient comes from a tree found only on the Greek island of Chios.

Other desserts include baklava — a pastry filled with chopped pistachios, hazelnuts or walnuts — and Turkish Delight — a gelatin often flavored with rosewater, mastic gum, bergamot orange or lemon.

The store’s name, only a few letters different from gelato, is derived from a neighborhood in Istanbul, Gulec said.

The inside of the store is part French-inspired and part English-inspired, with the pistachio-colored walls and display cases resembling a French patisserie with the other side featuring colorful tables, chairs and handmade decor set along pink walls.

The ice cream café is the third Turkish business to open on the corner of Second Street and Nieto Avenue in the last two years. Mike Schochet and Eyup Tekinbas co-own the two other businesses next to the ice cream store: the Galata Halal Restaurant and Grill along with Istanbul Home, a store featuring Turkish lamps and various home goods.

Tekinbas has lived in Long Beach for 15 years and has 13 various stores located around southern California, Gulec said.

Schochet met Tekinbas about five years ago while his wife was shopping at one of Tekinbas’ businesses in Shoreline Village.

The idea to open a Turkish ice cream store came when Schochet was visiting Tekinbas’ family in Istanbul, said Schochet, a real estate broker and lifelong Orange County resident.

“I just thought, this is great, how can we bring this to the U.S.?” he said.

Galata Ice Cream and Desserts is open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Fridays and from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekends.

Each of the store’s three ice cream servers learned the Turkish ice cream serving style in Turkey, Gulec said. They have worked in various countries before coming to the United States, including Jordan, Qatar, China, Japan and Kazakhstan.

The store’s owners have plans to expand to other locations in Southern California, Schochet said, although nothing is official yet.