Scoop DeVille — Restaurant in Philadelphia

Overall, a disappointing experience. I wanted to sample the cookie batter ice cream before buying since I was worried it might be too sweet, but the manager wouldn’t give samples. We ended up ordering a s’moreo specialty without fluff and a mango strawberry dole whip. The manager asked me if I wanted a cup or cone, but he neglected to say there was an up-charge for the cone. When I got the s’moreo, it had fluff, and it came sickeningly sweet with all the different mix-in’s pulverized together, rather than, ya know, mixed. The strawberry mango just tasted like syrup, and even the cup was sticky. The employee, at least, was kind and replaced my ice cream, but we didn’t want to make them replace the milkshake since it was what we ordered—it was just awful. Also, as soon as I paid with my credit card, I got a text message from the store without ever giving them my number— that felt horribly invasive. Don’t even get me started on the decor, which looked like Barbie crashed her pink corvette into a gum ball machine while on an LSD bender.

If you want overly sweet, processed candy of an ice cream, accompanied by invasive texts, this is your place, but if you want quality ice cream, go elsewhere—anywhere else.

Update: Samples. The store should do samples. From what I read, they stopped during the pandemic and never re-started. For the price of the ice cream, a sample or two would help ensure customers are satisfied. The employees told me I had to ask the manager for a sample, which clearly indicated they get a lot of requests, want to give out samples, and don’t want to deal with customers being upset about it. Texts. I did not receive a text receipt. Instead, I was texted about being automatically enrolled in a rewards program. Individual establishments who use Square choose whether or not they spam everyone who pays with a credit card. They can control that on their square dashboard. Flavors. New ice cream flavors are not made by sticking a bunch of things in a blender. But if that’s their business model, fine, just explain that upfront. I gladly would have gone somewhere else or ordered a sundae had I known. Sweetness. The sugar levels are off the chart. If they’re truly creating new flavors, they should be able to control the sweetness and not have ice cream that tastes like processed candy. Smoothies. This was the most processed thing we could have had. It was just sugary frozen syrup without any flavor nuance. The cup itself was sticky, but that was probably because the syrup was extremely sweet and spilled over it. Maybe use some fresh fruits in your smoothies? Up-charges. Many ice cream places offer a cone or a cup. I was asked which I would prefer without being told of an additional charge. That’s not cool. When an establishment up-sells, they should make that clear. Decor. I was pretty mean with my original comment of the decor, but I stand by it. The loud colors, complicated menu, and bright lights have no stylistic coherence, and are generally uninviting. They’re just a sensory assault. Maybe they’re trying to appeal to a child audience, but then why be open at 11pm?

Conclusion I have never really had a bad ice cream experience before—even fast food restaurants can do a decent soft serve. But with this place, almost everything that could be wrong was wrong. My original review gave it 2-stars because there was a nice lady who worked there that was very kind and genuinely seemed to care about our experience. I would give that employee 5-stars, but after reading the response from the store, I demoted my review to 1 star. The real problem I had was the manager who up-charged, didn’t explain the product at all, got my order wrong, and refused to give samples. But after reading the response to this review, it’s clear that the management as a whole is a problem. Here’s some advice. reduce the sweetness level, give samples of base flavors, use some fresh fruits in smoothies, ask people before enrolling them in rewards programs, simplify your menu, and create a more relaxing...

Update: 5/5. I've been back somewhere between 5 and 10 times since then. Everything was resolved. Big points to Spencer for the awesome reply to my original review. You know this place is under good ownership and management when you get that kind of reply.

As always, the ice cream is still ridiculously good.

Original Review: The ice cream is great, but if you're going to put cups out to show the size, it helps if you actually come close to filling them. I ordered a medium that had basically a single balled scoop in it that didn't even cover the whole bottom of the cup, let alone fill the cup. I don't expect it to be overflowing, but I would expect it to be CLOSE to filled. Apparently I ordered the densest ball of ice cream ever, as I guess they're selling by weight. Though nothing was weighed, just eyeballed. It's just a shame, because the ice cream tastes GOOD, but just not worth it at something like half a cup in volum in their medium that's listed at 8oz. Not cool to cut corners by shortchanging your customers. My friend ordered a blend that probably filled about 2/3 of his large cup. Again, no qualms with the quality, it was actually quite good. The portion sizes, however, leave something to be desired.

The entire time we were eating, one of the display cases beeped a warning about something wrong with it. The staff ignored it until we said something to the gentleman at the counter. He said he didn't know why it was doing that, came out and gave the machine a thump or something to make it stop beeping.

Overall, the flavor is good. Four and a half stars on the taste. Two stars for portion-skimping malarkey, and three stars for inattentive/apathetic staffing. Could have been so much better and was a real letdown after being excited to...

I ordered through GrubHub and was originally given a 45-55 minute estimated arrival time. My order should have arrived between 8:45 and 8:55. My app showed that it was arriving soon since 8:45 pm. I called the store around 9:10 to see what was the delay the lady who answered said that there was a delay and that orders were taking about 65 minutes. I waited and called back at 9:30 pm, which was an hour and a half since my original order time and 35-45 minutes past my expected arrival time. I spoke to a lady who said that they were really busy and that it was causing delays. She mentioned that the order had not left the store yet. She put her supervisor, general manager Eric, on the phone and he claimed that they were short handed and busy due to the nice weather and that this was causing major delays. I had waited 90 since my original order and it was made, but never left the store. He did not rectify the situation. It was absolutely poor planning on the store’s behalf because how could you be short handed if you knew the weather would be nice? That is something you can plan for. Honestly he should have started making deliveries himself to try and keep customers happy. Those who order online have already paid for their items and have paid extra in fees, delivery and tip. I finally decided to cancel my order at 10:15 pm which was 2 hours and 15 minutes since my original order and 1 hour and 20 minutes past my original...