Tundratown — Restaurant in Kinston

At first I liked this place and thought the atmosphere was nice. I initially went when they first opened up. The lady was nice and did great with our orders. We like to support small local business’. Recently we went 3 different day and times. Getting ice cream is no big deal, love the new color changing spoons. The cookies however, seems to be an issue. First time, everything went great, got my ice cream and 2 cookies. Fell in love with the cookies. Second time, I went back cause I was really craving the cookies, tried to order a dozen, the girl looked at me confused and asked her co worker if they even have that many (why have it listed if you don’t?), the girl responded it would take 30mins. I was fine with that and was good to wait, not even 5 mins later after I said okay, that’s fine. She then changes up the answer to it now being 30mins to 1hr wait with a face where you can tell they just did not want to make them. It wasn’t even busy either so I don’t know why it was so difficult. Like why advertize a dozen cookies then get McDonalds treatment where they say the ice cream machine is broken when in reality they just don’t want to clean the machine. Maybe remove the advertisment and put 2 cookies max. Ended up leaving and going elsewhere for cookies. Third time around, I wanted to give this place another try and get some of the cookies and ice cream, I just ordered 2 since ordering a dozen seems to be an issue. Ice cream was great, cookies were hard as a rock and not enjoyable. Did not appreciate getting old stale cookies. I’ve given up and will not...

I’ll preface this review by saying that I think we happened to show up on an off day— the first warm Saturday of the year. We first went to the back window and pressed the bell as instructed. No one came to help us after a couple of minutes, so we went around to the street entrance. The space is welcoming and our 5-year-old was thrilled about the arcade inside (most games were 50 cents a piece, which I thought was really reasonable). The item I originally ordered off the menu was no longer available (not a huge deal), but my family and I ended up ordering 3 sundaes. Between the back window and about 3 other families in the shop with us, the teen staff members seemed overwhelmed and were openly bickering with one another. My daughter received her order after about 10 minutes wait, and my husband got his about 10 minutes later. At that point, I asked how much longer mine would be, because our daughter had finished. After waiting another 15 minutes and asking again for my order, I finally got my sundae. The ice cream was good, but I’m not sure it was worth waiting over 30 minutes for.

It seems that the staff is young and require more guidance than they were given this day. I’m also not sure that the paper ordering system is working, as there were order slips all over the multiple counters, so it was easy to see how an order would get overlooked. Hopefully they work this out before the height of the season so people can...

Tundratown is the BEST ice cream place in Kinston. I absolutely love the ice cream sandwiches. The owners totally accommodate me by keeping hard frozen ones in stock. That is what I call customer service. I keep a stash of ice cream sandwiches in my freezer at all times, and my house guests love that I always have some on hand. This summer, when I visit out-of-town guests, I arrive with Tundratown to thank friends for hosting us. I also would like to mention how supportive of the community they are. They are often raising money for someone or something in the community and they promote other businesses in the community. They truly have a heart for Kinston. So I will end this review with: “Don’t be dumb,...