Cinnamon Bun

I was excited to stumble upon Uncle John's Ice Creamery back in May - what a scoop (haha) for an ice cream blog, to find a place that hadn't even been open for two weeks yet, had neat ice cream and "new business energy." Well, things kind of got away from me and this article has been half-written for nearly three months. Fortunately, they're still thriving!

The original visit came about after stopping for lunch at Code 1 BBQ's new location - they'd just expanded from a two-table takeout spot into a huge former-Panera space across the street in the Wilmington Crossing strip mall. Great ribs and brisket and amazing sauces - but they serve "until they run out" so you might want to go for lunch, like I did. Not to turn this into a "yankee bbq" blog, but a Big Pile Of Meat is best followed by a walk around the neighborhood (hint to city planners: even if you can't get your act together and have useful sidewalks that go places, at least make sure any restaurant has at least a half mile of walkable loop that doesn't go past Dumpsters or swamps!) and there were a couple of generic-looking placeholder signs, next to covered windows, suggesting an ice cream place was coming soon:

Approaching the sign, it turned out the covered windows were the next space over and the sign was attached to a set of already-decorated ice cream shop windows - with slogans like "Every Batch Made From Scratch!" and "We Make Our Own Ice Cream!" - but peering in those windows, there was a vast mostly-empty space, with a half dozen tables, a dark counter and a couple of lit up menu screens:

There was even a powered up freezer... that sort of looked like it had things in it.... Huh, why would a not yet open ice cream shop be spending money on keeping a freezer running, and why does the menu look like it has actual flavors on it?

Remember that bit above about stopping for lunch? That's kind of a novel thing for me, but the gears slowly turned... and the bit on the door that said "store hours 2pm-8pm" finally sunk in - it was just after lunch and it wasn't 2pm yet, oops :-) (Note: as of August they're actually open until 9:30pm, their website says those are "Summer Hours" until Labor Day.)

(How can ice cream be turned into breakfast if you don't open until two pm?)

So, after applying some old fashioned time travel techniques - walked a couple of laps around the mall neighborhood until they opened, thus getting to the future at one hour per hour - Uncle John's was actually open.

Ok, that was A Story, but what about the Ice Cream?

I got a large Cinnamon Bun and Maple Walnut. Possibly a mistake on the photography side of things, since they both show up as entirely neutral white, and the crunchiness of Maple Walnut doesn't come through at all either. The flavors were quite convincing, the ice cream itself was a little on the lighter side of the creaminess typical of Massachusetts ice cream but that may have adjusted in the intervening months - then again that also makes a Large a little less overwhelming.

They started with around twenty flavors, clearly labelled for nut and gluten content, plus a few extra Dairy Free options. The usual three sizes and both waffle and sugar cones (the website says that they've added an Oreo Sugar Cone as well), a variety of sauces (Hot Fudge and Marshmallow if you want to Build Your Own s'mores ice cream) and toppings that range from Chopped Walnuts to Mini Gummy Bears. (Sprinkles "(Chocolate & Rainbow)" were listed under Additional Toppings, I don't know if anyone has explained to them about Jimmies but the website says the same thing.)

If you can't choose, they have both 4-flavor and 8-flavor flights, with a "paddle" as part of the props showing off the serving sizes (only about 10% of the places I've reviewed here even have something they call a "flight" so it's probably still a good idea to have a handy explanation.) The website actually says you can get flights To-Go, which is an interesting party option.

They also have Frappes, Sundaes, and Hand-Packed Pints, and the website shows a Molten Lava Cake (with two scoops of ice cream.)

New Venture Enthusiasm

After finishing the ice cream, the owner stopped by to ask what we thought, which was a great chance to get some questions answered. Turns out they'd only been open since Mother's Day, and they're closed Monday and Tuesday (confirmed that this is still true in August 2025) because they make ice cream on-site on those days. They also expect to vary flavors based on what's popular (since they can change things up every week!) so I've left out flavor details other than what I actually had back in May. They also have a loyalty card, so if you're actually in Wilmington it's probably worth picking one up.