Burlington
Schoolhouse Ice Cream is on 3A about two miles north of 128; it's in a strip mall with True North Coffee, across the street from Mehfil Indian1. Lots of parking, picnic tables with umbrellas out front and booths inside. On a mid-November evening it wasn't crowded but there was a steady stream of takeout traffic.
They have two dozen ice cream flavors, with complicated ones like "Chocolate Fudge Brownie Dough" and "Blue Moon" alongside basics like "Mocha Chip" and "Black Raspberry". They also have a short list of frozen yogurt, sherbet, slush, and sugar-free flavors, and basic soft serve. They do make up for it in toppings - three kinds of dip cone, dry toppings including gummy bears, skittles, and snow caps, and a bunch of topics. They also have both rainbow and chocolate sprinkles (but no Jimmies.)
Ice cream is served in cups, pints, quarts; sundaes go up to X-large and Banana Boat. Drinks include frappes, malted, sherbet cooler, slush freeze2. On the extreme end, there's a Sundae Bucket Challenge, "10 scoops, 10 toppings, 1 spoon", and while they don't have named sundaes, they do have a dozen or so Staff Suggestions up on the wall, there are certainly enough options to build what you want.
They do emphasize that they use 16% butterfat for their own ice cream. However, most of the places I've been are on the high end of the scale anyway. The other detail on the sign is that this is "Schoolhouse of Cape Cod" - the backstory is that the Mom of one of the owners has an ice cream shop in Harwich Port out on the cape that they got advice from.4
The Ice Cream
I went a little fancier than usual and added whipped cream and walnuts to this one. Since there were multiple "location" flavors, I went with both of them: "Harwichport Mud Pie" and "Burlington Heath Bar".
The "Burlington Heath Bar" was sweet and crunchy, with enough chocolate from the heath bar to be more than just a butter crunch variant.
The "Harwichport Mud Pie" is named for the location of the owner's Mom's ice cream shop out on the Cape. Very rich, lots of chocolate mixed throughout; their website lacks details but I enjoyed it, it was a nice complement to the "Burlington Heath Bar" I started with.
Next Time
I'm definitely going to have to remember this place, while I'm not in the immediate neighborhood as much it is still pretty convenient (if you're coming from the east, you can get off 128 at Winn St and take that to where it meets 3A and you're almost there.) I'm going to have to give their soft serve dip cones a try, also "Chocolate Peanut Butter" - and I should at least ask what the "Blue Moon" flavor is.
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Up until 2015 I worked for Nokia in Burlington and Schoolhouse (and Mehfil, though it was Ritu Ki Rasoi at the time) was an occasional after-work choice, since it was right down the road. Although I don't have pictures, the red interior seems unchanged since then - not that it looks old, it's been well maintained, it's just very memorable. ↩
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This is New England, "Slush Freeze" probably counts as a non-infringing weather-named concoction. I suppose that means I'm now on a quest for a shop that has a "Graupel" drink, but it would probably have to have Dippin' Dots3 mixed in. ↩
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Researching this, I found a vendor recipe for a Dippin' Dots Affogato which would work, but also suggests I'm doing too much background research here... ↩
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Starting from Harwich Port, it turns out there are a lot of ice cream shops on the Cape, but (1) many of them are also Fried Seafood shops (2) a larger proportion of them are closed for the winter. ↩
Cookie Monstah is a small Massachusetts chain (6 stores1 and a rentable truck) that specializes in ice cream cookie sandwiches. While they do emphasize cookies2 you can get cups of just ice cream, or ice cream with a one cookie, the standard is a scoop of ice cream squished between two (same or different) thick cookies. They have at least two doezen flavors of ice cream, with some Gluten Free and Dairy Free options; their current (fall) menu includes "Banana PB Graham", "Apple Crisp", and "Blueberry Pie" but "Eggnog" and "Camp Fire Smores" are sold out. The menu lists Rainbow Sprinkles but no Jimmies at all.
They also have floats, shakes, a "Crusher" which is Sorbet in Iced Tea, and instead of the usual weather-themed soft-serve blended drink, they have a "Quake" - a cookie blended into hard ice cream. (Perhaps it's named after the noise the machine makes when constructing it?)
This particular shop is in a strip mall with plenty of parking, but only indoor service and seating.3
First Visit
It was getting near closing time so I had mine packed up to eat (and photograph) in the car. Turns out ice cream cookies are well suited for takeout, though they make an effort to wrap and box them carefully (possibly in support of their apparently extensive delivery-app sales.)
I went with Totally Turtle in between Double Chocolate and a Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip4 cookies. I couldn't find a precise description of their Totally Turtle, though Breakers, Dandi-Lyons and Mac's Dairy Farm all have flavors with that name; this version was a vanilla base with peanut butter, caramel swirl, and chocolate (cookie? brownie?) chunks. Quite a rich and varied flavor by itself, but with the cookies it ended up being A Bit Much - one of these ends up being even more filling than just a double or triple scoop "large" cup, especially after dinner.
Future Visits
Other ice cream flavors that caught my eye were "Death by Chocolate" and "Eggnog"; since I'll probably also go with a cookie next time, their "Thin Mint combo" caught my eye - mint oreo ice cream between double chocolate cookies.5
Nostalgia: Giant Cookies
The Cookie Monstah catering menu includes a 13 inch "cookie cake". While this is not itself ice cream, it brought back memories of a Very Boston special from Crossroads (a legendary Irish Pub) called the JenJen6, which was basically a giant cookie sandwich - with half a gallon of ice cream between a pair of dinner-plate sized cookies, topped with vast amounts of whipped cream and chocolate sauce. (Traditionally delivered to a table of college students by dropping it on the table with a fistful of spoons and dodging back to avoid getting caught up in the carnage.) The dish inspired many amateur attempts to duplicate it... which typically failed, because it's hard to make a cookie that large and actually bake it consistently (usual failure mode is raw in the middle but still burnt around the edges.) Perhaps the Cookie Cake is a better starting point!
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Small, but bigger than Scoop'N'Scootery which is only 4 stores; Massachusetts seems to be a good place to incubate new ice cream shop concepts... ↩
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For a strip mall, it's actually in a surprisingly natural area - there's a stream and a bit of forest, and it's across the road from a large (but inaccessible) Vine Brook Wellfield protected wetlands - but no trails or picnic areas in walking distance. ↩
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It will be wrong - given the "Thin Mint" name, the cookies should be crispy and not cakey and they should be chocolate-covered - but perhaps it will surprise me and be evocative enough anyway. ↩
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The JenJen was supposedly named after one of the cooks; the only reference I can find is in How To Get Around MIT from Fall 1998 ↩
Breakers Ice Cream in Woburn (no web presence) is on Winn Street, a couple of blocks north of Woburn Common. While it has a 4 windows and a set of well-lit benches with umbrellas along a large parking lot, it's not actually that visible from the street - it's tucked in behind Mike's Place Pizzeria and has a relatively small street sign. Since it's after Labor Day, they were notably one of the few places in the Burlington area that were actually still open1 after 9pm (they were actually serving people right up to 9:30.)
They might have indoor seating, I couldn't tell if it was that or that Mike's Place extends around behind them (a disadvantage of late night ice cream runs, even the well lit places aren't all that conducive to wandering around, though google maps shows that the extensive parking continues around the back of the building too.)
First Visit
I went with "Death By Chocolate" (which had a proper dark chocolate flavor to it, as well as mixed in brownies and other chocolate.) Followed it with "Green Monster" which is a traditional mint with stuff in it; not all the way up to "grasshopper" level, but plenty of mint and plenty of chocolate.
Next visit I might try "Maine Black Bear" (raspberry) or Totally Turtle, though if their machines are up a chocolate dip cone is just as likely.
The menu lists soft serve and dip cones; they also have frappes and slush.
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While they were open, getting there 15m before closing meant that while they had dip cones (chocolate and cherry) they'd already shut down the soft serve machines for the night, so I didn't get to try those (I don't at all blame them, though, it lets them get a head start on a messy cleaning job when there aren't that many customers around anyway.) ↩