Sugar Ghost — Restaurant in Memphis

I waffled on a 3 vs. 4 before finally deciding on a 4 -- I think my own crabbiness and frustration with my own mistakes is coloring my view a bit unfairly, so I'll round up and give this place the benefit of the doubt.

I knew we'd be in the area, and pretty much demanded that we stop so I could try some boba and ice cream -- two of my favorite treats in one spot!

Parking is rough but my husband just drove the car around in circles while I went in alone to grab my items.

We came on a Sunday evening while in town. Despite the threat of a pretty gnarly storm, they were crazy busy. The line moved at an average to somewhat slow pace, but the workers were doing their best -- having worked at an ice cream shop in the past, it's not their fault when multiple guests insist on trying a million different flavors.

The shop itself is very cute. The pink color scheme and the spooky theme lends itself to adorable selfie and aesthetic picture-taking opportunities. Wish I'd had more time to look around and take photos.

Since the line was moving somewhat slowly and I was in a big rush to get out of there to try to beat the storm, I thought I'd be clever and order online so perhaps my treats would be ready by the time I got to the front. Ordering online was pretty simple and I was able to make my selection and modifications and pay over the phone.

But when I got to the front of the line, they didn't have my order. The staff were very polite and tried hard to find it, but it wasn't there. I felt like a pit opened up in my stomach. They asked to see my receipt/email clarification, but I didn't remember which email the receipt went to and I was in such a huge hurry/didn't want to hold the line up signing in and out of 3 different email accounts that I told them to just forget it and make my order new.

So here's what happened: there are two Sugar Ghost locations, and I placed an online order for the one in Poplar, and not the one on Broad.

This is 100% my fault. BUT, this is a mistake I've made a few times with places that offer online ordering at more than one location. While I realize it's my responsibility to get the location right, I do think it would be nice to have some sort of flashier signaling so that the person ordering doesn't accidentally order for a different location. Be it location tracking or a pop-up to make sure you're certain about where you're ordering...it would help.

Basically, I wound up getting the same order, but I had to pay for it twice. Frustrating, even though it's my bad. Honestly, maybe the staff would've made it up to me if I'd found the confirmation email; I can't know because I was in such a hurry I didn't bother. But I can't hold what they didn't get a chance to do against them, so on to the actual product!

(For what it's worth, I was impressed by their bubbly and polite demeanor even in the face of my grouchiness. I don't think I was rude/mean, but I'm sorry for being sour, y'all -- it wasn't your fault!)

I got a small brown sugar milk tea with boba and a single scoop of the Mud Island ice cream and then I rushed back out to my car in the pouring rain.

The brown sugar milk tea was fine. Like many other reviewers have noted, it is certainly quite sweet -- but I was expecting that. I liked the brown sugar flavor. The boba had a nice chewy texture but a slightly floral taste that didn't go with the drink, imo.

The Mud Island ice cream...hm. The ice cream itself was very smooth and creamy and rich and had a nice chocolate flavor, a bit like chocolate pudding. However, the description made it sound like it had a ton of goodies in it (pretzels, caramel, chocolate chips, pecans, Reese's cups) and I think I got maybe two bites with small soggy pretzel pieces in it and that was it. I was looking forward to all the "treasures" in the ice cream and I never found them. Still, the "body" of the scoop was good.

Like I said, really not sure how to rate this place, so I'm erring on the side of generosity because it's not fair to hold my frustration at own mistakes...

I'll have to give this one a try another time maybe. Nothing special when I went. They posted about doing specials for National Ice Cream Day but when I got there, they said that was over and there wasn't anything still. Well. Ok then.

The flavors available weren't anything really unique and all the ones I sampled were just, eh. They only have generic vanilla soft serve with no dipped or anything you can't get at anywhere with a soft serve machine. The ice creams cannot be made into milkshakes. Milkshakes are only vanilla ice cream with add-ins. I chose soft serve with peanut butter sauce and I got a bowl of plain ice cream with a sad, anemic squirt of peanut butter topping on top. Like from a squeeze bottle for condiments. It wasn't worth finishing.

The flavor of the month staff pick was called Hokkaido but it wasn't listed on the menu of milk tea flavors. I asked and was just told it was a "nutty" flavor. Maybe that should be put up on the menu for customers to see when they're in line deciding to order.

Overall there is better ice cream in Memphis. It must depend on what flavors they have on rotation. I hate to give a local business a mediocre review but I might give them another try for a different set of flavors now that I know...

Sooo first time customer, looking up dessert places in the area I was around (Broad Ave). I read the reviews and nothing bad so why not? I tasted the Ube, it's the purple ice cream on left in case. It seems to be a fav, it was not bad but I had other plans! I told Robin I was a chocolate person so she gives me a sample of Death by Chocolate and it was like a party going on in mouth. Also from reviews I knew I wanted Mud Island, that was another party as well. I added descriptions of the ice creams so you can see what all is included, I had chocolate, oreo, chocolate, fudge, chocolate, pretzels, chocolate and caramel. I can't tell you what else were in those 2 scoops but it was alot going on and I was down for it. Mari made my order. Both ladies were sweet and patient with me. Customers were friendly. A dog was inside so pets welcome, assuming leash is a must. Overall 10/10! Now I am sad bc my ice cream is gone, oh funny moment: I was driving and kept licking my spoon trying to figure out why the chocolate isn't coming off only to realize the spoon changes color from pink to purple when cold. It was dark outside so...