July 11, 2020
After our Costco stop, where NO ice cream was eaten, we drove past downtown Pittsburgh, drove through the Ft. Pitt Tunnel, and up to quaint Mt. Lebanon. It was raining so, after parking along the street a block away from our destination, we donned our rain jackets and masks and went “walking in the rain with the one I love.”
Betsy’s is a cozy ice cream shop with mosaic flooring at the entryway and other remnants of the building’s long history. Gregg counted 24 flavors of ice cream (and a sorbet.) They also make vegan whipped banana frozen dessert. (I can’t call it ice cream since it contains no cream.)
A unique feature of this creamery is a dry ingredients self-serve toppings bar which could be purchased for $1.75. Wet toppings were available with it although they were not self-serve. Gregg had recently brainstormed the idea of using “hotel cereal dispensers” at an ice cream store so it was fun to see it being put into practice. Sadly, COVID-19 has temporarily closed the self-serve toppings bar. It was fun to see, none the less.
Gregg had a scoop of Chocolate Beyond Reason, dark chocolate ice cream with dark chocolate chips and brownie pieces. Yum! It was obviously made from good quality, very dark chocolates.
I had a scoop of Mexican Chocolate. The deep chocolate ice cream contained Mexican spices which gave it an almost cinnamon-like flavor with a faint “bite” once I finished eating. The empty dish showed specks of spices in the cream. Double Yum!
These flavors and ice creams jumped to the top of our favorites list! They were rich; it would be difficult to eat more than one scoop. Gregg noticed a batch freezer so I suspect that is how they make their ice cream.
Ratings on scale of -5 to 5:
- Creativity: 2 for ice cream, 5 for store and toppings bar
- Flavor: 5+
- Texture: 5
- Temperature: 5
- Selection: 5 (24 flavors – although there weren’t many others that were tempting to us)
- Type: hard packed/scooped
- Worth the drive? 5 (a resounding YES!)
