Greenville summer is coming, and you know what that means. The heat and humidity are already here, and June just started. Thankfully, Greenville has plenty of options for staying cool in the sticky, sweaty summers. If you’re looking to cool off with a chilly treat, several local, independent ice cream shops are happy to oblige.
We did a research tour of local ice cream, gelato and frozen yogurt shops to help you pick. Our list does not include chains (like Marble Slab, Bruster’s or Cold Stone Creamery) or shops that sell under the banner of a nationwide brand. We instead focused on shops that prioritize some or all of the following:
- Inventing their own flavors
- Crafting their own cones
- Creating special diet options
- Making or blending their own ice cream/gelato/froyo in house
- Building a unique store environment
Blueberry Frog
Monday–Wednesday, Sunday: 12:00–9:00 p.m.
Thursday–Saturday: 12:00–10:00 p.m.
Website: blueberryfrog.com
Blueberry Frog offers fresh flavors of frozen yogurt with scads of tasty toppings. Blueberry Frog blends their rotation of flavors in-house with their own unique recipe. All of their frozen yogurt flavors are gluten-free, and they even offer delicious fruit sorbets and dairy-free yogurts (when we were there, they had a vegan birthday cake flavor!). A family-focused restaurant, their downtown location invites you to draw on their colorful interior walls with sidewalk chalk. With their refreshing and affordable treats, Blueberry Frog is the perfect spot for a date or an escape with friends. Show your student ID for a whopping 20% off your order.
Pink Mama’s Ice Cream
(Summer Hours for Traveler’s Rest location)
Every day: 11:00 a.m.–10:00 p.m.
Website: pinkmamasicecream.com
Located in downtown Travelers Rest, this local retro-themed ice cream spot serves up triple scoops of originality and a generous sprinkle of fun. You can load up a homemade waffle cone with one of their wild house-designed flavors, such as Lavender White Chocolate, Pecan Pie Cheesecake, and the owner’s favorite, Pink Mother Load (Oreo and chocolate chip cookie crumbles and almond flavor set in hot pink vanilla ice cream). And be sure to take a snap of you and your order in front of their vibrant selfie wall.
If the drive to TR seems too far, don’t worry! The Pink Mama empire extends down on Pleasantburg, where you can snag a snack at their hard-to-miss pink drive-thru stand. Show your ID at any Pink Mama location to add a 10% student discount to their already low prices.
Crѐme Shack
Sunday: 12:00–9:00 p.m.
Tuesday–Thursday: 12:00–9:00 p.m.
Friday–Saturday: 12:00–10:00 p.m.
Website: cremeshack.com
Crѐme Shack offers what co-owner Fred Williams calls “eatertainment.” Crѐme Shack doesn’t have the most familiar feature of ice cream shops: a freezer cabinet packed with multi-gallon tubs of technicolor ice cream. In fact, your ice cream doesn’t even exist until you place your order.
Fred and his crew make rolled ice cream with a process that delivers the freshest ice cream possible. At Crѐme Shack, you’ll watch as a staff member pours fresh cream onto an icy slab, combines the rapidly-freezing cream with your ingredient(s) of choice, smooths the cream into a flat rectangle and chisels out the ice cream in perfectly coiled rolls for an Insta-worthy, extra-creamy creation.
Their website features dozens of videos that demonstrate the ice cream rolling process. They also offer other treats, like “Domos”—ice cream filled doughnuts.
Luna Rosa Gelato Cafe
Monday: Closed
Tuesday–Thursday: 11:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m.
Friday–Saturday: 11:00 a.m.–10:00 p.m.
Sunday: 12:00 p.m.–9:00 p.m.
Website: lunarosagelato.com
There’s more to order at Luna Rosa Gelato Cafe than just gelato: they’ve got a full menu of Italian lunch and dinner favorites, too. But the first thing you’ll see on entering their downtown store is a bright orange and yellow freezer cabinet displaying huge trays of beautiful gelato and sorbets. Luna Rosa is a variety champion, so you may find it hard to pick a flavor when you visit. Choose from flavors like chocolate velvet, triple fudge brownie, caramella, peanut butter coffee, stracciatella, orange truffle and many, many more. Luna Rosa keeps one of their displays full of dairy-free sorbets with flavors such as lemon, apple and strawberry. And they don’t skimp—even a kid’s scoop is enough for an adult appetite.
Molly and Myles Ice Cream
Monday–Thursday: 3:00–9:00 p.m.
Friday: 3:00–10:30 p.m.
Saturday: 12:00–10:30 p.m.
Sunday: 12:00–9:30 p.m.
Website: mollyandmylesicecream.com
Molly and Myles is a treat for the eyes as well as the taste buds. Located right next to the movie theater in Cherrydale shopping center, Molly and Myles delivers delicious treats in a cinematic package. From their stylized signage to their superhero-themed decor, eating at Molly and Myles feels like stepping into a comic book. Inspired by (and named after) the owners’ children, this ice cream shop was designed by kids, for kids—and kids at heart.
This local ice cream shop is also the home of the U.S.A.’s only cereal cone. The creative geniuses at Molly and Myles wrap a cereal-marshmallow combo around cake cones. Depending on availability, you could get a Fruity Pebbles cone, a Cookie Crisp cone, a Cinnamon Toast Crunch cone—and that’s just a few of them! You can also order a comic-book-hero shaped cookie ice cream sandwich, a hand-dipped homemade waffle cone for your ice cream, a custom ice cream cake or one of several other sweet treats. And all of their ice cream comes from Homer’s, a family-owned business in Chicago that produces extra-fresh, extra-creamy ice cream. And they always keep a dairy-free flavor or two in stock.
Dillard’s Ice Cream
Monday–Thursday: 12:00–9:00 p.m.
Friday–Saturday: 12:00–9:30 p.m.
Sun: 1:00–9:00 p.m.
Since 1996, family-owned Dillard’s Ice Cream has been serving up treats with an expansive roster of traditional, seasonal and specialty flavors at the quaint facility it shares with the Fishers Orchard farm store. Reasonable prices and friendly, efficient service are more than a motto here. In addition to staples, they swap their flavors to match the season. Homemade peach (the first of the season’s crop was picked in late May) and strawberry ice cream draws fans in droves each year.
The Greer location on South Buncombe Road is a lengthy drive from the BJU campus (there’s also a store in Mauldin), but if you’re shopping in town or on Wade Hampton Boulevard, or even heading to the airport on Route 14, be sure to treat your tastebuds at Dillard’s. Please note that they only accept check or cash, so don’t forget to stop by an ATM on the way.
Looking for more to do in Greenville? Check out the rest of our Around Greenville series.
