Last night before watching Flightplan [review] we had 30 minutes or so to kill, so my wife and I visited a new store nearby called the Cold Stone Creamery. At first I thought it was some sort of upscale yogurt store and begrudgingly followed my better half into the store.

Inside the store was very clean with a wooden floor and furniture and had an almost Starbucks-like motiff to it. Definitely not like Baskin Robbins or Dairy Queen. Inside the long row of refrigerated displays were metal sheet pans with various ice cream flavors. Patrons waited in a snaking line with airport like dividers.

Behind the counter a smiling employee greets “the next group” and offers samples for the various Cold Stone Creamery ice cream flavors. I was impressed by the friendliness and thoroughness the employees showed the new customers, willing to explain and almost counsel as to the best ice cream to buy. Along the inside of the window were waffle cups with the ends dipped in chocolate.

Even cooler, no pun intended, was what happened after we ordered. Turns out that my wife let me do the ordering for both of us. I chose the sweet cream flavor along with Kit Kats. The young lady scooped out the ice cream with two metal spatulas and started kneeding it like bread on this counter, working the chunks of Kit Kat into the ice cream. While she did this she kept some idle chatter going with us and then placed it in the chocolate tipped waffle bowl. The price: $5.41 USD.

Alongside the cash register was a rack of brochures, one showing franchise information. I asked my wife to put that in her purse so I could check out the Cold Stone Creamery website later.

Now back to eating the ice cream. It wasn’t all melted like the last time we hit Dairy Queen or having a non-fresh, kind of frostbitten taste like Baskin Robbins sometimes does, it was thick, dense and you couldn’t really take more than a small spoonful. Absolutely, positively delicious. Hands down among the best — maybe the best ever — ice cream I’ve ever tasted. It was so filling, so good, that both my wife and I couldn’t finish the bowl we were sharing. Wow.

The experience reminded me of the first time I had a Krispy Kreme donut, which was in a shop in Las Vegas. I’d never heard or seen Krispy Kreme before, but I figured if they kept their quality and the word got out, I would be seeing them someday closer. Sure enough they built a brand new Krispy Kreme not far away from this new Cold Stone Creamery store.

Ok, so maybe Cold Stone Creamery is not “new”, being that the first store opened in 1988 in Tempe, Arizona, but it was new to us.

Their brochure said new franchises can be started with an initial $42,000 and a total investment of between $264,800 and $399,600 as of February 2005. If you know anybody thinking of starting a promising ice cream shop, I’d point them to Cold Stone Creamery. If you love to eat good ice cream and are anywhere near one of these shops, stop on by.

We definitely will be patronizing them again. I’m getting a craving for their ice cream just writing about them!

If you are coming out to the Seattle/Tacoma/Olympia area, Cold Stone Creamery has you covered. You can find the nearest Cold Stone Creamery here in your area. There are 10 stores near our office including locations in Bonney Lake, Lakewood, Auburn, Federal Way, Tacoma, Covington, Tukwila and Olympia. Kent is coming soon.

This is not hmm, this is mmmm.

Did this post make you go hmm?

Maybe Related Posts (plugin generated)

• Sweets for your Valentine
• Friday June 3 is Krispy Kreme free donut day
• For the shell of it
• Best store bought soft chocolate chip cookies?
• Ice cream sandwich maker set selling in a clothes store
• Day 4: Chocolate Factory, Carson City