There is also Hewitt's Dairy Bar, just outside of Hagersville, between Hamilton and Port Dover.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:07 PM on June 24

My grams could navigate all of northern new england by ice cream shops and next month I'll be stopping at Smiling Hill Farm to have an ice cream cone from the same place she brought me to as an ten year old. Maybe stop by Lickety Splitz when I'm over there as well.

Gotta have a cone for Gram!
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:54 PM on June 24 [1 favorite]

The Ontario ice cream of my youth is a giant soft serve cone from Merla Mae. Somewhere I have a picture of my dad there as a kid in the 50s. Just look at this beauty. Optionally dipped in chocolate shell, which kid me thought was awesome, but adult me thinks is just messier to eat. I don't know how old their sign is, but it looked like this in the 80s when I was a kid, and it still did when I was last there to see my grandfather before he died in 2014.

It's not any sort of special soft serve, but it's nostalgic, and I still love soft serve in general. I live in California now, and soft serve is oddly hard to find. The last time I had good soft serve was at a Super Duper in San Francisco. Like the Merla Mae, they had a fun ice cream cone sign that I walked past while wandering around, so I ducked in and ordered one. I felt like everyone (woman ringing me up, woman serving the cone, the other customers) gave me a sort of bemused smile for being a middle-aged man ordering only an ice cream cone at 2pm, but whatever, man. It was delicious and made me feel 10 years old.

For regular ice cream, I live a 10 minute walk from Ampersand Ice Cream, which is local place that makes their own flavors. The have a menu of the usual suspects (Honeycomb! Bordeaux! Whiskey Caramel Swirl!), plus a menu that's updated monthly.
posted by mrphancy at 10:26 PM on June 24

This is awesome! Ice cream should be enjoyed by everyone!

Even better, share a scoop!
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 10:29 PM on June 24 [3 favorites]

FWIW, it's currently spelled Bobcaygeon.

Its recorded name bob-ca-je-wan-unk comes either from the Mississauga Ojibway word baabaagwaajiwanaang "at the very shallow currents", giishkaabikojiwanaang "at the cliffed cascades" or obaabikojiwanaang "at currented rocky narrows", or from the French beau bocage "beautiful hedged farmland". - via Wiki
posted by fairmettle at 10:41 PM on June 24 [1 favorite]

Aw man, I was just in Toronto a few weeks ago and sure would have loved to try the best burnt marshmallow ice cream! I did have a delicious cone of Honeycomb Milk Cereal at Ruru Baked in Lansdowne though.

Ice cream is my favourite so if this is going to be an ongoing series I’m very excited!
posted by thebots at 10:54 PM on June 24

I grew up in misissauga, very close to Dairy Cream. I remember one time I was cleaning my room and found an old piggy bank I had forgotten about that had a bunch of change in it, so my brother and i hopped on our bikes and I got my favourite, the hot fudge brownie deluxe sundae. Good times
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 11:02 PM on June 24

Out here in Ottawa, at the very edge of Ontario the beautiful, we like the Merry Dairy.
posted by Gar at 3:44 AM on June 25 [2 favorites]

Earlier in the spring, Kawartha Dairy introduced their newest flavour — Constellation. Incredibly dark chocolate ice cream, streaked with caramel and studded with tiny biscuit pieces that are covered in white chocolate.

I have actual DREAMS about this flavour and am no longer allowing myself to buy hand packs for my home freezer because an obscene amount of ice cream “disappears” in a couple of days.

I am fortunate to live 10 minutes from their Toronto Danforth store location… which opens at 9 am.

Send help. And cones.
posted by elkerette at 3:52 AM on June 25 [2 favorites]

Kawartha Dairy has long been a staple in my life. We’ve had a store in our neck of the woods since the 1960s. Many who grew up here jokingly attribute their current carpal tunnel to long summers scooping ice cream for long lines of tourists (I’m not sure that’s solely to blame, but it certainly didn’t help).

It was very much considered a local “best kept secret” (in the sense it wasn’t widely known unless you were from up this way, or visited up this way) for a long time, and seeing it expand into more urban centres and become more widely known is kind of cool.

I’ll have to check if the hole-in-the-wall ice cream shop down the road from me has the new flavours. Sometimes they do, sometimes they are a bit behind. Either way, I’m up for an excuse to go out for a cone.
posted by eekernohan at 4:42 AM on June 25

The Kawartha Dairy nanaimo bar flavour is also quite good. The chocolate and subtle coconut are nice, but what is really spot on is how they capture the taste of the custard layer. Hits that Bird’s custard flavour perfectly.
posted by elkerette at 4:53 AM on June 25 [1 favorite]

Kawartha Dairy makes Tiger Tail! For this they will ever have my loyalty. We discovered this only a couple of weeks ago and we've already been through two tubs. For me, this is one of the major tastes of summer, evocative of long family road trips and stops at an ice-cream stand in Jasper which faced out onto the rail tracks. That stand closed long ago and the budling itself is gone now from fire. But I can still taste the ice cream.
posted by bonehead at 6:52 AM on June 25 [3 favorites]

Tom's Dairy Freeze in Etobicoke is great. Rich cream soft serve as well as everything else, including fries and burgers. Cute little vintage shop, CASH ONLY. They sell Xmas trees in the off season.
posted by brachiopod at 7:17 AM on June 25 [1 favorite]

In the Niagara Region, we go to Avondale Dairy Bar in Niagara-on-the-Lake (not the town part, the country part, out by the canal). The ice cream is great, and it's so nice to have ice cream at an actual dairy farm, with the cows grazing nearby as you eat you ice cream at a picnic table under a shade tree.

There are other Avondales, and no shortage of ice cream places in town, but the one at the dairy farm is the one to go to.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:21 AM on June 25 [1 favorite]

Kawartha Dairy makes Tiger Tail! For this they will ever have my loyalty.

I’ve been craving Tiger Tail for weeks now, but haven’t indulged. Now I have decisions to make next time I go out for ice cream.

You know what tastes really close to Tiger Tail? That orange cream Coca Cola. It’s not 100% the same, but in a similar ballpark.
posted by eekernohan at 8:24 AM on June 25

The ice cream magic place: Shaw's

You can find Shaw's here and there on Ontario's south and west coasts. Their Gold Medal Ribbon is by far my favourite, and likely everyone else's, given how it's always the first to sell out.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:27 AM on June 25

I support this but I would encourage this extended to Winnipeg which is actually kind of low key famous for its awesome old school and new school ice cream places (many of the new school are owned by New Canadians who have imported many of their cultural favourites to their shops).

If you like the peanut, Shaw's Peanut Butter Boss? *chef's kiss* There's also Mapleton's in Palmerston. My favourite from there is the Dandelion ice cream.
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:41 AM on June 25

In Hamilton (and a short bike ride from my house) we have Willard's. Excellent ice cream, always a lineup out the door. Half of the bar is fully vegan. And its flavours can be odd. Experimental. Some work better than others, but they're always interesting, with some never to be repeated. Luckily, they let you sample flavours before you commit.

Jammie Dodgers. Parmesean. Garlic. Dr Pepper. Lemon. Smoked Vanilla. Nerds. London Fog. Matcha. Whisky and Bacon. Mango Sriracha. Chocolate and vanilla (if you're lucky). You never know.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:50 AM on June 25 [1 favorite]

The last Kawartha Dairy location we indulged at was in Bancroft, a couple of years ago. Busy, and worth the wait.

Also, Udderlee Kool at Long Point. Over a decade ago, we would visit (or rent) my friend's cottage on Long Point, and it was a short after-dinner walk to get ice cream. google says they're still in business.
posted by Artful Codger at 9:21 AM on June 25

Port Stanley used to be a hopping tourist destination.
It had the Stork Club from 1926-1979 A ballroom with Big band music

The Stork Club was famous for swing dance and attracted some of the biggest bands in North America at the time including; Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Guy Lombardo, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman
posted by yyz at 11:35 AM on June 25

Bar Ape in Toronto's my recommendation. Great bars and soft-serve gelato with seasonal flavors. Cash only, no seating, and a line up down the street at peak times.
posted by samhyland at 12:24 PM on June 25

I remember stopping in Orangeville after a family camping trip before the pandemic and ending up at some hole in the wall place that sold Kawartha Dairy ice cream. They handed out massive scoops and we ate them hanging out at the nearby Rotary Club Park. I went through Orangeville last summer on a bikepacking trip and was hoping to get ice cream from there but they were no longer around. I did see signs pointing me to another ice cream place and saw they also had Kawartha Dairy ice cream but the milkshake I got there was pretty light on the ice cream.

I actually had high hopes for eating a lot of ice cream without guilt on that bikepacking trip but I think that may have been the only ice cream I ended up eating/drinking. Although I did bike by the Chapman's factory in Markdale, which I didn't even know was there until I was riding by it.

Both Minden and Fenelon Falls have quasi-famous ice cream places but I think that's more for their location and ambiance than the actual quality of their ice cream.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:38 PM on June 25

Ashwagandha - I was born in Winnipeg but haven't been there in many decades, but I do remember being taken to the Beady Eye/Bridge Drive In/BDI and was happy to see it's still on that list.
posted by stevil at 12:39 PM on June 25 [1 favorite]

In the suburbs of Vancouver I found Kawartha ice cream in my local Sav-On-Foods, bought it taste untried. Yum. I'll be buying it again.

I have a soft spot for Chapman's, another Ontario creamery. When their factory burned down in 2011 they didn't lay off any staff and paid them until they rebuilt. Currently they are absorbing tariff price hikes in solidarity with other made in Canada brands.

BTW when in the Vancouver (BC) area try Earnest's Baklava ice cream. With local history of Greek, Cypriot and other related culture's in-migration, baklava is found in many shops and cafes around Vancouver. But in Ice Cream? Mmmm!
posted by Zedcaster at 4:59 PM on June 25

Port Stanley may have faded in glory from its Big Band days but is still an underrated spot. Mackie's on the beach, while not specifically an ice cream place (they sell Shaw's there), is iconic.

Winnipeg's BDI is still around! And still gut busting delicious!
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:12 PM on June 25

You are not currently logged in. Log in or create a new account to post comments.