We always get really tough assignments over here at the Insider, whether it’s riding electric animals inside the mall or playing wheelchair basketball.
That’s why it was no sweat when we decided to take on the task of hitting up a sampling of Concord’s ice cream joints to find out what makes each one unique.
Plus, we know you probably don’t have time to go around to every ice creamery in town, and we’re just here to help.
So here’s a rundown of what we found to help ease your frozen treat addiction. Enjoy!
Granite State Candy Shoppe
Granite State Candy Shoppe has been a fixture in downtown Concord since 1927 – so it’s safe to say they know a thing or two about the ice cream and candy business by now.
“We have about 120 flavors that we pull from, but we have room to scoop about 32 flavors at any one time,” said owner Jeff Bart.
Granite State Candy Shoppe is a hard-only facility – no soft-serve here. But with all those flavors, who needs soft-serve?
All of the ice cream – super premium, which has 16 percent butter fat as opposed to 14 or 15 percent – is made right there on site with dairy from Contoocook Creamery. Ice cream sandwiches are made using cookies from Crust and Crumb in Concord, so it’s a super-local affair.
Apart from ice cream cones and cups, they also do frappes and floats, as well as sundaes. There’s even a make-your-own sundae bar, which uses flat prices of $4, $5 and $6 – don’t bother putting anything on a scale. You have a choice of about 30 toppings and sauces, so show up hungry.
Granite State Candy Shoppe, 13 Warren St., is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 10 to 8 Thursdays and Fridays, 10 to 6 Saturdays and 10 to 5 Sundays. Go to granitestatecandyshoppe.com for more info.
Summer Freeze
Summer Freeze is your classic walk-up ice cream stand, offering hot food as well as frozen treats.
There are 18 flavors of hard ice cream and four flavors of soft-serve to choose from. Sometimes there’s even dairy-free or homemade ice cream – you’ll have to stop by to see what’s available that day.
The hard ice cream is from Gifford’s Famous Ice Cream in Auburn, Maine, and the soft is from Hood. When owner Jon Lang makes a batch from scratch, he uses dairy from Bartlett Farm in Concord – keeping it local.
Summer Freeze has a new special sundae – the Banana Bread Sundae – that has been really popular so far. Lang said he’s also thinking about introducing some kind of chili chocolate ice cream to the lineup – something that gives a little bite.
Stay tuned for that one.
There’s also a happy hour every Thursday night from 6 p.m. to close, in which soft-serve kiddie cones go for a buck.
Summer Freeze, 74 Fisherville Road, is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 10 on Fridays and Saturdays. Go to summerfreeze.com or look them up on Facebook for more information.
Arnie’s Place
Arnie’s Place is an ice cream mainstay on Loudon Road known as much for its barbecue and classic car shows as it is for its ice cream.
But that doesn’t mean the ice cream is an after-thought.
Arnie’s serves up soft and hard ice cream, shakes, frappes, sundaes, ice cream cakes, ice cream pies and pretty much anything sweet and frozen you can think of.
The ice cream Arnie’s serves is made right there, and there were 46 flavors available as of early last week – the lineup is always changing a little bit.
If there’s one ice cream product Arnie’s is known for, it’s the T-shirt Sundae, an eight-scoop, six-topping monster that gets you a free T-shirt if you finish it. (If you read the story on page 19, you’ll see how hard it is to accomplish.) As heavy as the sundae is, it is not impossible to finish – some dad did five of them over the course of the summer last year.
We might need to get that guy on the staff.
Arnie’s Place, 164 Loudon Road, is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day, staying open until 9:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Go to arniesplace.com for more info.
Ballard’s Ice Cream
Ballard’s Ice Cream is a well-established walk-up joint offering hot food and all kinds of crazy custom sundaes – the Strawberry Twinkie Delight or the Funny Bone Bonanza, to name a few.
Ballard’s has 58 flavors of hard and 13 flavors of soft ice cream, and owner Norm Ballard never divulges where he gets his product – trade secret!
Ballard’s is also home to a brand-new, state-of-the-art soft-serve machine by Fuzionate, which allows for the creation of dozens of soft-serve flavors. Ballard is pretty sure he’s the only ice cream merchant in New Hampshire who has one, so if you want to taste the future, you have to go here.
Ballard’s, 7 Broadway, is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, with summer hours (probably starting this week, Ballard said) extending to 10 p.m. on weekdays. Go to ballardsicecream.com for more info.
Buza Dairy Bar
Buza Dairy Bar is the newest place on this list, having just opened less than a year ago on South Main Street.
Buza has 12 flavors of ice cream, but the star of this show is the gelato.
Gelato is milk-based rather than cream-based, so it has about 74 percent less fat than traditional ice cream. It’s also denser than ice cream, having less whipped air.
There are nine different gelato flavors to choose from, and they’re all currently made by hand by owner Jeannette Zaza, who took gelato-making classes in Italy to perfect the art.
There are also usually two sorbet options on hand – sorbet is dairy-free and it’s fruit-based.
And everything in the gelatos and sorbets is fresh and natural.
There are gluten-free ice creams and gelatos, too, and you can get them served in a gluten-free cone, to boot. Nothing worse than ordering a large gluten-free ice cream only to learn the cone is gluten-full.
Buza, 25 S. Main St., is open 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays, until 10 Fridays, noon to 10 Saturdays and noon to 6 Sundays. Go to buzadairybar.com for more.
