It was a cold Tuesday night in November when we decided to rock on up to the Cold Stone Creamery to get a taste of home - in the form of some really good, custom designed ice cream. Imagine our surprise when there was a line out the door and around the corner! Since the first Cold Stone Creamery opened in Tokyo on

November 3rd, the scooping hasn’t stopped and neither has the singing behind the counter (more on that later).

The original Cold Stone Creamery opened in Arizona in 1988. Since then, they have opened more than 1000 stores across the United States in their effort to deliver “the Ultimate Ice Cream Experience.®” They have recently begun expanding their franchise concept overseas, hence the opening of our own local creamery.

So, what’s the catch? Why is this place so fabulous? To start with, they have over fifteen flavors of creamy delicious ice cream. Then, you get to select your “mix-ins” - more than two-dozen different fruits, candies, nuts, cakes and brownies, and then…toppings! Your first mix-in is free, so go ahead and add a few more. Your creation is mixed together before your eyes, and then served up in a fresh baked waffle cone (which explains that delectable smell that wafts by as you walk in the store). And if that isn’t enough fun for you, the people behind the counter sing as they drop your selected scoop of ice cream onto the cold granite slab and mix-in your selections. They sing funny little ice cream ditties to familiar tunes - all just to make it more fun for the customers!

If you can’t decide on a flavor, pick one of Cold Stone’s creations like Chocolate Devotion (chocolate ice cream, chocolate chips, brownies and fudge) or Cheesecake Fantasy (cheesecake ice cream graham cracker pie crust, blueberries and strawberries). If you like ice cream, you really can’t go wrong here. So go on, try some white chocolate gummy bear ice cream to welcome in the winter!