Handel's Ice Cream — Restaurant in Fort Wayne

We recently paid our first visit to Handel's (in large part because of a promo card my wife got for running the Fort-4-Fitness Half-Marathon) and now I'm kicking myself because I wish I had known about this place sooner.

Situated directly off of Illinois Road, it's grand, arched front façade it as eye-catching as it is welcoming. Just looking at it says "this place is cool!" (pun intended).

The interior is very Red, White, and Blue, and just past the counter where you order your ice cream delight is rows of freezers housing the confectionary awesomeness. To the left you'll find the Current Flavors wall. Based on that wall they can accommodate up to 48 flavors of ice cream.

Forty-Eight flavors of ice cream!

(One more time now for those in the back): Forty-Eight Flavors of Ice Cream!

My brain is hard-pressed to think of a place that offers more. Holy WOW!

If you can think of an ice cream flavor it's a good bet that they've got it. For a VERY long time I've been on a quest for apple ice cream. Looking at the Current Flavors wall I scoped it out, hoping I'd finally find some and. bam There it was! Deep Dish Apple Pie ice cream! It was an ice cream dream-come-true.

Once I decided what I wanted we went to the register and Sage took our orders, then Ryan (as I recall) was tasked with preparing our cones. I don't think it was 5 minutes from the time we placed our orders to receiving our cones.

I'd share a picture of the awesomeness that was the Deep Dish Apple Pie ice cream, but it didn't last long.

There isn't a lot of seating inside of this Handel's, (basically a couple benches) but outside there are several pic-a-nic tables for sitting down to enjoy your treat.

Living in Louisville, we don't have anything like Handel's. Yes, we have local ice cream, but not 48 flavors worth. Both Sage and Ryan (?) were helpful and friendly and appeared they loved what they were doing. And, let's be honest, that wouldn't be such a bad gig, selling ice cream and...

I am rather disappointed in our experience for all the crazy hype about this new place in town. We're local and fans of local ice cream places, but not this one. The ice cream was tasty, but the rest of the experience was dim. My kids and cousins asked for some kind of toppings on top of the ice cream IN the cone - not the cone which is evident has chocolate and sprinkles or peanuts on them. A cone is ONLY ice cream - which is kinda weird when they have all the ingredients to top, but they just don't do it. OK... Fine. Accepted. BUT then, I asked for a banana split and was thinking, salvation with some ice cream and real fruit. It felt like I had to pick flavors besides vanilla, because they have you pick 3, but I wasn't feeling all the flavors tonight, just wanted simple. Gave in and chose 2. When I received it, it looked like Strawberry Shortcake got hired to diarrhea strawberries onto splits. Then her partners Pineapple and banana splattered their bits all over. The strawberry on this was mushy, thawed, and gross looking. Completely unappetizing. I've honestly never seen such an ugly banana split. As a business owner, in the food industry, the flavors were yummy, but the execution is lacking. I don't often leave reviews but felt strong enough about this experience to. Also, an hour later, my cousins and my stomach hurt which means something is off. We are regular visitors of Sweet Monster Ice cream on Lima and LOVE IT. FRESH FRUIT, simple ice cream made right in front of you with a wonderful appetizing presentation. Check them out before you try Handles. Or after to redeem your love for loaded ice creams. Edited to note: an hour later my kids stomach hurts. We never hurt after Monster. I even had it around lunch time one day and didn't eat until dinner...

2 of the 3 employees need to be reevaluated on evening shift on 09/06. My family came in we placed our order with the gal at the front who was very kind, she noticed the staff behind her wasn’t working, before doing their work she made sure to acknowledge the in coming customers offering if they needed a sample, as they were picking theirs flavors she started to make one of the 3 orders of my family and she kindly asked her coworker to help and make the shakes as he was standing there on his phone and he told her to mind her own business and that he is busy on TikTok and continued to stand there on his phone which is extremely unprofessional and inappropriate as there is now a line at the front and she had to make all 3 orders. During all this: another employee came out from the back on her phone not helping and then started to have a conversation with the guy distracting him more with whatever she was showing him on her phone. Honestly ridiculous. The gal at the front handled it calm and respectfully, she just ignored his commentary and worked even harder to make sure all customers were happy and taken care of! Her hard work was appreciated and recognized! Thank you for making our order! Ice cream was awesome as always but wanted to share this because I felt so bad for her with the...