Village Ice Cream Co. — Restaurant in North Kingstown

Unfortunately we had a really disappointing experience.

We were so excited for a new ice cream shop in Wickford as it’s just down the street and we get ice cream all the time!

My kid has allergies to egg and wheat. He can usually eat most ice cream that doesn’t have mix-ins but we have to be careful of egg in the ice cream bases. Before we ordered, we asked if they could check for egg and wheat in the ice cream base ingredients and the staff seems to have panicked.

Someone went in the back and came out to tell us they don’t make their own ice cream so they don’t know the ingredients. We asked who makes the ice cream because we might be able to look up ingredients online. They said Warwick Ice Cream so we try to look it up but Warwick Ice Cream doesn’t have ingredients online. I even try calling Warwick Ice Cream but it’s 7pm and no surprise, I get their voicemail.

But! We know he can eat their Del’s Lemonade ice cream from having it from the grocery store before. We order it and an ice cream each for my husband and myself and pay for all 3. They give us (the adults) our ice cream but he’s still waiting for his.

That’s when someone comes out and says they can’t be sure there wasn’t cross contamination in the Del’s Lemonade bin but that they have an unopened bin of both chocolate and vanilla. We’re very glad they did that! We ask again if they have anything that shows the ingredients on those unopened bins to make sure there isn’t egg or wheat in the chocolate. There’s some confusion because the ingredients are only on the lids and they don’t have the lids? That leads me to ask if the unopened bins have the lids with the ingredients (because they’re unopened) and more people go in the back to check.

While we’re waiting to find out if the chocolate is safe, someone who wasn’t part of any of these conversations comes out with a scoop of chocolate and hands it to me. Confused, because we still haven’t seen the ingredients, I ask if they’ve found the ingredients for chocolate and if it’s egg and wheat free. She also looks confused and goes in the back. Someone else we hadn’t seen before comes out and says yeah it’s egg and wheat free.

I’m not terribly confident that it is but at this point we’re pretty much done and ready to leave.

We toss it in the garbage on the way out and went somewhere else for ice cream for my kid.

If they just told us they couldn’t be sure to begin with that would have been fine! We’d have gone somewhere else and tried again another time when we could speak to someone at Warwick Ice Cream and get the ingredients. But instead it feels like they chose to gamble with our kid’s allergies and we weren’t going to do that, hence the tossing it on the way out.

I’m sure we could have asked for a refund for that one ice cream, but at that point I wasn’t too confident that would go well either.

I’d like to chalk it up to “just opened” jitters but there are a lot of people with allergies, and I’ve seen places that keep a binder of ingredients for each flavor that they can pull out when someone has a question.

At the very least, it’s okay to say “we can’t be sure of the ingredients and you should go somewhere...

My family and I were so excited to visit to the new ice cream shop in Wickford, as we have been long time residents of the area. We had had a very enjoyable experience and ended up coming back three more times in the second week they were open.

All of the staff were very friendly and seemed to be as enthusiastic as we were about the new shop. Our orders were brought to us almost immediately after we had placed them, rivaling the service of other shops we had been to previously. I was overall extremely impressed with the professionalism of the staff.

The shop itself was very well decorated to create a pleasant atmosphere to enjoy our treats. It had many comfortable seating choices for all ages as well as a pleasant retro vibe making it the perfect place to beat the heat and stop for a delicious treat.

Our orders themselves were extremely tasty. We tried many of the unique sundaes offered by them; the visual and flavor aspects of the sundaes combined to make a well presented and extremely delicious treat. The shop offered a variety of flavors with a plethora of toppings. They also have vegan, sugar-free and allergy options available. My personal favorite sundae would have to be the old fashioned, because it provides a choice of flavor of ice cream and provides the patron with hot fudge and whipped cream to top it off. Some of the more unique sundaes include brownie, pb & j and tiramisu sundaes.

Needless to say, it is an amazing place to stop by with family, friends and is definitely worth the visit. I highly recommend checking it out for yourself. Thank you Village...

Theresa at the Village Ice Cream Co. has been a life safer this past fall and winter. I have been able to stop by and pick up all kinds of dependable,delicious soups for my family. I am a retired chef from some high-end establishments and really appreciated the great quality and variety of the soups. We and a few neighbors have had a very challenging couple of seasons, and the soups have been a God send. I am not sure I would have stopped in to try the soups if it wasn't for a best friend's recommendation. We started with the Chicken Escarole Soup and have added many other tasty soups to our repertoire; Split Pea, French Onion,Chicken Pot Pie, Lentil etc. This little ice cream shop has truly saved me from stressing over the responsibility for the health and well-being of the family. Whether it's been,my family or neighbors being sick, mouth surgery, running out of time in the day, or simply adding a great easy nutrietioal option to our diet , Thank You for being there, Theresa ❣️...