Strachan's Ice Cream & Desserts - Dunedin — Restaurant in Dunedin

So some friends and I come to this place at like 9PM on a Friday night. It's super packed with families. It looks like the busiest place on the whole downtown strip of Dunedin, and for good reason. So we walk by the walk-through window and see that people can order and get their ice cream from the street, which is actually pretty nice.

We get inside the building and it is just jammed wall-to-wall with people. We get in line and start pondering our choices. They have a menu of amazing-sounding ideas, like scoops, sundaes, milkshakes, etc. They have freezers lining the wall with various slices of pie or cakes or whole pies and cakes. The options are seemingly limitless.

We get to the front and start to browse the flavors. They are all unique and obviously made in-house. I settle on a scoop of Reese's Peanut Butter Cup (Peanut butter with sweet and salty Reese's cups) and my girlfriend gets Carrot Cake (Carrot cake batter ice cream with chunks of our award winning carrot cake), both in waffle cones.

Both were delicious. I thought I knew exactly what I was getting into with Reese's, but this place added in a salty element to the flavor that I didn't even know I wanted. If you like the salted caramel thing, you will like this flavor.

As good as mine was, my girlfriend's was better. Her carrot cake was so... carrot-cakey. That's the best way I can put it. The taste of it was in every lick and the chunks of stuff you'd find like a nut or an actual carrot just set it off perfectly in a scoop that was just sweet enough to make you want to eat a whole gallon. I recommend.

Overall, I really enjoyed this place. The wall-to-wall customers didn't stop them from serving us in a timely manner and there's even another option in the walk-through window if you're truly in a hurry. Five stars for an excellent product and I will be back the next time I...

I came to Strachan’s Ice Cream & Desserts thinking I was just going to have a little treat. A casual scoop. Maybe a sprinkle. I walked out reborn. Transcended. Absolutely rattled to my CORE.

Let me set the scene: It’s 93 degrees. I’m sweating through my soul. My flip-flop just broke. My wife left me (temporarily, to find parking). I wander into Strachan’s like a dehydrated Victorian widow stumbling into a candlelit chapel—and suddenly I’m hit with the smell of fresh waffle cones like a brick wall made of sugar and nostalgia.

I ordered a double scoop of Cookie Dough in a hand-rolled waffle cone. It arrived like a divine offering. I took one bite and immediately forgot my own name. I’m serious. A child screamed in the background and I just whispered, “Shhh… let them feel it too.”

The ice cream? Illegal levels of creamy. It tasted like someone churned it with hope, forgiveness, and an old family secret. The chunks of cookie dough were generous—recklessly generous—like the owner has unresolved guilt and is trying to earn redemption through mix-ins.

And the staff? Don’t even get me started. These people are too kind. Like “maybe they’re angels in disguise testing humanity” kind. One of them smiled at me and I almost confessed every mistake I’ve ever made. I’d trust them with my PIN number, my pets, and my future children.

By the time I finished the cone, I was crying softly and texting my therapist:

“Cancel our session. I’ve found peace. It’s in Dunedin.”

Strachan’s isn’t a dessert shop. It’s a full-blown spiritual awakening in a waffle cone. I came for a snack and left with a new lease on life. If I lived within 100 miles of this place, I’d be bankrupt and euphoric.

11/10. I’d let this ice cream ruin my...

In February 2020 I spent 1 month in Tarpon Springs, and I would go to Strachan's every opportunity I had, more often to the store in Palm Harbor; however I also ate at the store in Dunedin several times. In February 2020 I wrote a 5 star review for the Palm Harbor store about my positive Strachan’s experience. I praised their key lime pie, their carrot cake, and their black cherry ice cream. Now, June 2021, I am back in this area on vacation, and the first thing I wanted to do was to go to Strachan’s. This time I visited the Dunedin store. The black cherry ice cream was still as good: creamy, flavorful, and loaded with black cherries, that are not too sugary so you can appreciate the distinctive black cherry flavor. However, to my disappointment and sadness, the key lime pie and the carrot cake were not the same, and not as good. They are still better than most, but not better than they were 1 year ago. The key lime pie is not topped with meringue anymore, but with whipped topping, not even real whipping cream. The crust has changed: it used to be a good pie crust, now is something between graham cracker and pie crust. The filling is not as creamy and well balanced in flavor as it used to be. The carrot cake is now dry, not as moist as it used to be. The frosting does not taste like cream cheese as it used to taste. I don’t know what happened to their products; perhaps the company changed owners, and I am not aware of...