More crowded than Roche Bros. the day before Thanksgiving
By adamg - Fri, 06/13/2008 - 10:18pm.
Around 7 p.m. tonight, the line outside the newly opened iScream Works on Centre Street in West Roxbury stretched to the end of Real Deal. Even at 9:30, there was still a line outside. You'd think Centre Street hadn't seen ice cream in years.
Oh, wait. It hadn't.
Inside, the store is kind of small, but cool, what with exposed brick and the original tin ceiling. All the ice cream is from Brigham's (even the frappe and ice-cream cups say "Brighams"). Considering the place only opened today, the line moved remarkably quickly.
I drove past a little before
I drove past a little before 6pm and the line was down the block, almost past the Real Deal.
iScream Works
So what's the "catch"? How is it any different from, say, JP Licks or Toscanini or Herrell's? Apart from the obvious punny name including the ubiquitous lower case "i". Is it just an attempt by Brigham's to get back into the retail business?
Special secret difference
Instead of actually making ice cream, they just serve something you could buy at Roche Bros. two blocks away.
Other Locations
We love Colleens - yeah, you could buy some of the brighams flavors elsewhere, but they also serve lunch, dinner, kids meals, sundaes, fountain drinks like a Lime Rickey, etc.
They also stay open late and provide a comfortable, yet monitored social environment you can get to on foot from most of the city for hoards of teens during the summer months who hang around in the area meeting friends, eating ice cream, and not drinking and not getting stoned. (yes, the local constabulary patrolls - very easy when they are all in one place).
Stop and Shop and Shaws have yet to fill that void. They don't have make your own sundae birthday parties, either (which seem to be as popular with elder groups and knitting guilds and the like as they do with the local parents).
oooh, that's a fun family
oooh, that's a fun family outing. "Hey kids, who wants to go down to Roche Bros. freezer case for an ice cream"? For chrissakes Bob Ward is just trying to bring back an ice cream shop like we all had when we were kids. It's just ice cream, no "angle", jeezus lighten up.
Somebody asked
I answered. Go scoop yourself.
I did...
...and I enjoyed every minute of it.
Big difference
Can you get a frappe or a root beer float or a sundae at Roche Bros.?
"Other Locations serving Brigham's Ice Cream"
I don't know why, but the Brigham's store-location page lists a number of "Other Locations serving Brigham's Ice Cream", after the list of their own locations.
At least two of them, Colleen's in Medford and Helen's in Concord, were former Brigham's locations.
The Brigham's connection
One of the owners works in advertising. Guess who one of his clients is/was?
Its An Ice Cream Shop
Guess what? After a poll of West Roxbury residents, a location most desired was an ice cream shop. So what are Ward and Palladino doing? Putting in an ice cream shop in the heart of West Roxbury. Just because they don't make the ice cream doesn't mean it's not going to be a great place to go during the summer. Its a great little place.