Lowell

I found Heritage Farms as a result of an experiment with the new "nearest unreviewed places" feature of the experimental ice cream map - I was out at the Russell Bird Sanctuary in Westford and this turned up. (Technically this isn't a first visit, since once I got there I remembered the place from back when I lived in North Billerica and was looking for late night ice cream.)¹

It's on Pawtucket Boulevard, which runs right along the Merrimack River; Pawtucket is divided so you can only get there westbound, but there are a couple of reasonable u-turns which you'll need if you're coming from the south west.

The location has lots of parking and both indoor and outdoor seating - picnic tables under an overhang and out in the open, plus two indoor dining rooms (shared with the pizza and subs business.) They have signs about ordering ice cream inside if it's off-season, but it's already the end of April and the outside window is definitely open.

There's a little ATM built into the side of the building, but unlike most other ATM-equipped ice cream shops I've reviewed, they do take plastic (maybe they didn't in the past, but kept the hardware?)

I was pleased that their sizes are explicit: Large is 4 scoops, going down to Kiddie being 1 scoop. Note that I didn't learn from this information and got a ludicrous amount of ice cream anyway…

They have cups and cones, sundaes, a banana split, and a "pina colada boat". They also have chocolate and vanilla soft serve, and packed quarts and pints. They have a bunch of drinks: frappes, sodas, floats, raspberry lime rickey, and slush (red flavor and blue flavor):

I'd only heard of Vevor as a brand of low quality machine shop tools, small lathes and mill tables - lots of youtube videos about buying vevor tools and rebuilding them yourself, to trade hobbyist shop time for money. It was a little surprising to see the brand name on a slush machine, but even more surprisingly it looks like Home Depot sells this exact model.

Toppings include jimmies, M&Ms, and multiple kinds of gummy bears.

The hard icecream is Richardson's, which is dense and creamy and mostly means you don't need translations for things like Moose Tracks.

The ice cream itself

I went with a large, half "Death by Chocolate" and half "Campfire Smores" (with chocolate jimmies, shown.)

Without the jimmies you can see a fairly dark chocolate - it tasted very dark, and had fudge swirl and solid bits inside. As a chocolate fan it would have been a great choice all by itself.

By the time I got to the "Campfire S'mores" layer, I realized that getting an entire four-scoop large was perhaps a mistake and ended up bringing most of the S'mores half home, freezing it and having it the next afternoon. It held up surprisingly well. It's a very sweet flavor, I think caramel sauce as well as chocolate? and it is specifically a marshmallow ice cream flavor. The graham crackers were good for texture but didn't make it any less sweet. If that's what you're looking for it certainly delivers!

Next Visit

I'll probably be back in the area to do photography along the Merrimack River, and will try their "Creamsicle" frappe (Vanilla ice cream, orange sherbet, milk and whipped cream) though the Cannoli ice cream also caught my eye.

The signs

They had a lot of neon signage, but it was interesting that the local signs were clear about being "Heritage Farms" (plural) even though the google listing says "Heritage Farm." A minor detail but google streetview shows the plural spelling back to 2012, and the sign visibly unchanged (but not actually legible) back to 2008.

One of the amazing painted signs said "You can't make everyone Happy - you're not Ice Cream" and maybe I should use that as a banner for this site :-)