Ice Cream Social
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Think leotards and 80s hair. Now think of the environment you’d expect to find these things in. Take this concept and fuse it structurally with a former gas station and a patio constructed from the simple addition of brick pillars. Voila: you have this ice cream shop. It’s not surprising to gaze upon ice cream freezers and hear the on again-off again flavor, size, and topping commentary. Yet, the deliberations on a sea of bubble gum pink and jewel-toned stripes on the walls—like the beams of an otherworldly energy passing through—were somehow based differently. “It really does taste like a creamsicle,” the woman next to me said to her friend, holding up her spoon like some kind of holy artifact. If you do sit inside, you’re surrounded—give it a minute. The deep-freezers disguise themselves as part of those beams again, that culminate into a Powerpuff Girl accent wall. Every so often, like penguins dipping into holes in the ice, the staff will come back and dive for ice cream beyond the front-of-house flavors. While most of the activity comes from the bathroom, it isn’t the distraction one might expect—just an added berry pink element among that of the cotton candy chairs. What does the dedicated palette and strung shimmering tulle ultimately churn out? A sweet something worth scooping into your day’s dish.
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Drink: Oat Latte
My hopes weren’t the highest here—simply an ice cream shop kindness (NOT cynicism). They have coffee as a complement to ice cream, and to demand beyond that is inconsiderate. However, when I saw the Coffee Labs decal on the front window, my spirits lifted. For an ice cream shop to invest in local (and attestable) coffee is an indicator of someone behind the scenes with taste. Now, how good was it? The staff member didn’t know how to use the Rancilio (so another woman helped her), so she ended up being very careful with the milk. While she didn’t burn it (something that people often do with oat milk because the scorching temperature is lower than dairy milk), she might have been na little too light handed—quite the rarity. I loved that the cup was full; I could see it going well with any ice cream due to its nonconfrontational body; and the pink sleeve was the visual lip-smack, for which I was appreciative.
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Drink: Brownie Sundae
This was a sundae for a million. Like, wow. It was so much that it wouldn’t stay in the cup. Was the third pump of hot fudge a bit much? I think the Heath bar crumbles is also overkill, but it does offer something that makes it feel renewed. While the whipped cream is soft, surprisingly, it stays peaked under the hot fudge and as you poke down to the ice cream layers, does not deflate. You can get any ice cream you want, so I ended up with the Coffee Cookie and Cookies and Creme. These choices were baller. At about a third of the way through, my progress began to slow. I wouldn’t consider myself a fan of how the employee had pulverized brownie on the bottom and added hot fudge. It ended up almost hardening at the bottom. It doesn’t help that the hot fudge is not the best quality. At about 60% through it, I wondered how much more I could eat without getting sick. All my fault if I got sick. The sundae was blameless…mostly. Ice cream and whipped cream are tricky though—they have a very short shelf life. This point is also when I started to look up places to run in the area. I like that you can choose the kind of brownie for the sundae. If sugar is killing us all, eating this dessert shaved a decade off my life. When I had about an 1/8 left, I threw in the towel. My thoughts: I’m going to have to get on Ozempic. I’m so glad I had a salad for lunch. At one bite, I felt like I might vomit. I wasn’t strong enough. That’s when I said no more. My skinnied, former-fat kid body couldn’t take it.
