Graham Central Station

Pizzi Farm in Waltham turned up as a surprisingly nearby option, for a place I'd never heard of (or accidentally driven past) before. They're sort of a "near miss" from some major routes - they're about halfway between Trapelo and Totten Pond roads, and halfway between Wyman St/128 and Lexington St. If you're on the section of 128 south of 2 and you see that hillside encrusted with large shiny office buildings? They're half a mile behind those.

Just because I hadn't been there, doesn't mean they're unknown - possibly because they were still open late even though it's September, there were twenty people on line ahead of me at 8:30pm. I don't think any place I've written about has been that busy, short of a downtown Boston J.P. Licks after a game.

They had four windows open and were serving reasonably efficiently - I still had a 15m wait, under a minute per person, but that shouldn't scare you off. I went back the next afternoon and there was only a ten person line; according to their website this place does stay open all winter.¹

First Visit

They have a lengthy menu, including Campfire S'mores and Chocolate Raspberry Truffle. I went with Chocoholic and Graham Central Station on my return visit, but got distracted by their soft serve - I don't think I've ever seen Creamsicle soft serve before!

Unfortunately, if you look closely, that machine is already switched over to fall flavors - Maple and Pumpkin (presumably a Maple-Pumpkin Twist given how those are configured.) So I went with my classic, a vanilla soft-serve chocolate dip cone.

Yes, it's pretty drippy as-served but that's pretty standard for dip cones.

Second Visit

I don't usually go right back to a place, but poking around the map I discovered Prospect Hill Park was nearby and had some interesting looking hill-climbing trails, so it seemed like a good combination - a big serving of ice cream and then some exploration. (Fall foliage in New England is unevenly distributed, so it turned out to be a photographer's dream combination of Sunset and Autumn Leaves along some otherwise sparsely used trails.)

The Graham Central Station was great, I think it's a relatively new flavor but I'm happy to see it more places. The Chocoholic had a nice dark chocolate flavor to it, but was a little less creamy than I expected, at least to my Tosci's-attuned tastes.

They also have Sundaes, Ice Cream Sodas, Frappes, Smoothies, Raspberry Lime Ricky, and Slush; they also have something blizzard-like called (appropriately, and I assume non-trademarkedly) "The Nor'easter".

I think for my next visit it's a tossup between trying the Maple soft-serve and their Hardy Pond Mudd² flavor, though the Coffee Fudge and Strawberry Cheesecake also look tempting.

One of the places I go for wildlife photography and exercise is Wachusett Dam, in Clinton - convenient parking on Route 62 at the top of the dam, and a pair of 250ish step staircases down into the basin and back up the far side. (There's also a more gentle but much longer access road if you're at the bottom and find the stairs overwhelming - which is also a prettier path if it's Fall and the leaves have started changing.)

Turns out that the closest ice cream place is Rota Spring Farm (around the northwest side of the lake - on what is basically a shortcut from 110 back to 62, which you can take to 190 to 2 and be directly on the fast path back to Boston; alternatively, if you're doing the Fall Tourist thing, Davis Megamaze is right there too.) Plenty of parking, the shop itself is a couple of serving windows under an overhang, with another window for hotdogs and subs, as well as a "farm stand" shop. Lots of picnic tables (including a handful under an overhang) with a very New England-scenic view of the adjacent farm with cows and goats (the farm is down a small hill and wasn't a strong smell, but it had just rained for 20 minutes before I arrived.)

First Visit

One thing that the more interesting ice cream places have in common is concocting their own flavor mixes, and naming them. While at this point things like "Moose Tracks" (vanilla ice cream, chocolate swirl, chocolate chunks) and "Green Monster" (mint chocolate chip with chocolate cookies) are reasonably consistent across the state, more advanced combinations need more of an explanation. While the server was happy to explain "Ruby's & Onyx" (chocolate chip with maraschino cherries) when I asked, they also had a detail menu with all explanations (right next to the serving window - I didn't notice it before I asked, but that's on me.)

I ordered a large, and since that's three scoops the server asked which one I wanted more of - which ended up with me getting three flavors instead of my usual two: Butter Crunch, Graham Central Station, and Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl.

The butter crunch was actually "crunchable" - sometimes the crunch bits are too solid to safely bite down on, this didn't have that problem. The ice cream itself was good - not as strong as the Bright Yellow variant from Chelmsford Creamery but that was unique; this one was fine, and the "crunch" part was far above average.

Graham Central Station (which as a train geek I picked just for the name as anything) turns out to be a Graham Cracker Ice Cream with chocolate-covered graham cracker pieces - which turned out to be a better "S'mores" ice cream than any of the ones I've had so far that were trying to be. They should add a sundae that's just this, a dollop of marshmallow sauce, and wave a torch over it for ten seconds.

Finally, the Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl. This is one of those where the peanut butter makes the chocolate taste more chocolate (or maybe decades of Reese's ads have eaten my brain.)

In the future when I go for three flavors they probably shouldn't all be complicated multi-component ones, but they're so tempting...

Future Visits

I'll definitely try Cowabunga Crunch, Coffee Oreo or Cappuccino Chip, and Maine Wild Blueberry. They also have meatball and roast beef subs made from "[their] own grass fed beef" but the non-ice cream bits of the shop close down at 7 so it would need to be an earlier visit.