Eleven water ice stands that close at the first cold snap
Every stand on this list closes when it gets cold. Consider this a deadline.
Water ice does not do winter. The stands that make the real thing open in spring, close at the first cold snap, and spend the whole summer with a line out front. Here is where that line is worth standing in, while it lasts.
-
Homemade water ice on South Main since 1994, and the summer line out the door backs it up.
-
A warm-months-only stand with a flavor board that swings from Butterbeer to Dubai Chocolate.
-
Water ice is the headline and ice cream plays second. Hours run seasonal and get posted week to week on their Instagram.
-
The Philly-summer standard on Lincoln Highway. Order a gelati and you get water ice and soft serve layered in one cup.
-
An independent stand on West Broad, scooping the Italian ice the name insists is the real thing.
-
Forty-plus flavors of homemade water ice. Cash only, open 3 to 9, and they will make the dog a pup cup.
-
Water ice and hand-dipped scoops on 7th Street, with a sister shop inside a one-room schoolhouse that ran until the 1950s.
-
Built for the summer-evening walk: cones, gelati, and a line that forms the second it warms up.
-
Sixty-seven flavors of hard ice cream plus water ice and boba. Reviewers admit to ten minutes at the flavor board.
-
Open daily noon to 10, with Via Veneto Italian ice next to second-generation ice cream made out in Emmaus.
-
A pizzeria since 1976 with Via Veneto Italian ice at the counter, so dessert is decided before the pie lands.
More field notes
- Eleven coffee shops that beat driving into the city
- A brewery in a Victorian house, and eleven more out here
- Ten pizza spots worth the drive, one bakes a 30-inch pie
- Nine antique shops out here, one funds a shelter
- Ten bookshops out here, one of them open since 1788
- Ten cheesesteaks worth the trip, one served at 3 a.m.
- Every field note
