The Yard Milkshake Bar - Downtown Raleigh — Restaurant in Raleigh

I've been waiting to take my wife here since hearing about the location opening up months ago b/c she is a huge ice cream lover. With it finally opening last month, I was able to take my family this evening.

It's a nice location (minus the current construction) and all the screens showing the menu and various options with ingredients was helpful while waiting in line. The ice cream itself was good. The presentation of the various specialty desserts and the glass they come in is probably the most fun/unique thing about The Yard.

I was also pleased with the friendliness of the staff and the hard work they were putting in to serve many customers. With this being a new location, I am sure there are things to still work out and improve, but wanted to make note of some things I was surprised by as a heads up to others.

1 - There is basically no street parking (partially due to construction), but a parking deck near by. It cost us $4 for parking to walk to the The Yard, wait for our order (To Go), and head out.

2 - There was a decent waiting line when we arrived. The weather was beautiful and it is the weekend, so it was actually nice to see a bunch of people interested (and a sign that others have potentially heard good things).

3 - While the line was going out the door, it only took us about 20 minutes to get to the front and place our order. What we were not expecting was the 45 minute wait to get our order. The Yard was well staffed with people that seemed to be busy. It looks like the milkshake preparation is time consuming (and probably people are still training on how to make recipes, especially quickly). In general, I don't get upset waiting, but it would've been nice to know it was going to take a long time after placing the order.

4 - I was very surprised to get to the cash register to order and see I had to pay an additional 3.5% service fee for using a credit card. First, it would be nice for this to be posted on the door or somewhere else in the location. Most people do not carry cash regularly and I rarely see any business that charges an additional credit card fee (especially in food services). This was disappointing, especially when the desserts are already pricey. Also, many payment services have rates closer to 2.5%. Make sure to bring cash if you come.

5 - Sitting room inside is decent for a location like this, but with how full they were, there was no place to sit down. Outside, there were only 2 tables and these were also full. Otherwise, there were no benches or good places to sit and enjoy. These desserts are not easy to eat while standing (especially with young kids). We ended up taking them home with us.

6 - Also, with the prices I saw online, I was expecting this to be home made ice cream. While Blue Bell is not bad, we make a lot of our own ice cream and because of this, expect a bit more out of our ice cream desserts.

Overall, I would like to enjoy The Yard as a special occasion type of dessert place for the family or when people come into town. Again, the food was good and the staff was nice. However, with the other current downsides, I will probably not return for a while and give it a test run before bringing someone else with me again.

Paying $18 + service fee + tip + parking is just not worth it as a regular thing. In essence, we paid $50 for...

Warning: The Yard is NOT for people with allergen sensitivities and may even be violating ADA laws. After the long wait to get to the counter and order, they then require you to sign a paper waiver, and then after signing the waiver, they refuse to serve you even if what you ordered wouldn’t be an allergen issue for you.

Well… The Yard is a case study in allergy management gone wrong. My family and I went to one of the first The Yard locations in Atlanta back in 2021 and it has been legendary in the family since. We were so excited when Raleigh got one and have been waiting to go here on a family date night for months. Unfortunately, we made the mistake of disclosing Gluten intolerance while ordering and requesting obvious glutenous ingredients like chocolate chip cookies and Oreo crumbles be left off. Only After going through the long process of placing 6 milkshake orders (at over $20 each with modifications!) were we then given a PAPER waiver to sign for “allergens”.

Not since an ill-fated Disney cruise have we experienced such a heavy handed and totally overkill approach to managing a food allergy. Only AFTER signing said waiver were we then informed “we can’t make you any milkshakes because you disclosed a gluten allergy.” This was explained to be due to cross contamination on the milkshake mixer. I explained that we are ok with that level of cross contamination. Just so long as they omit the requested gluten items we would be fine. The manager then came out to say that, in fact, they could not sell us $120 worth of milkshakes. I again reiterated that mixer cross contamination is fine, but she stated that since we had signed the waiver, they could not make us any milkshakes. I asked for the waiver back, but she said that they couldn’t “undo” the waiver. The manager and staff were polite, but this policy is absurd.

Nowhere on the waiver did it say they couldn’t make us anything but rather simply stated clearly that there could/would be cross contamination.

I totally understand a need to have common sense disclosure about food allergens and some degree of liability coverage. But this??!! This was insane. It ruined a long awaited family date night, wasted an HOUR of our time (driving, parking, waking, in-parking, driving), and left two parents with four very sad and disappointed kids.

It seems The Yard should be renamed “The Yard only for certain people”. Given how this was handled, I’m actually concerned that The Yard is in violation of ADA requirements by subversively getting customers to disclose health conditions and then discriminating and refusing service based on said health conditions. Imagine a restaurant that asked if you needed a handrail to walk down their stairs, and then said you had to sign a waiver before proceeding, and then after the waiver was signed, refused to allow you to enter because “you disclosed you needed a hand rail to walk down...

I really wanted to like this place... but it was a big let down. We went on a Monday afternoon as kind of an end-of-summer treat for my 8 yr old daughter (she was even dancing in excitement as they were making her mermaid shake).

There was no employee to be found when we walked in. We waited at the counter for over 5 minutes before a young lady walked through the kitchen door and said "Welcome to The Yard" in a way that sounded like we were inconveniencing her, and then she turned around and walked back through the door before we could even respond. A few minutes later she came back up front and said nothing. She just stared at us with ear buds in, like she was counting the seconds until we left. At no point did she smile or ask us if we needed help or even ask if we wanted to order anything. When we finally just blurted out our order, she sighed and then went to work, moving almost sloth-like, like she was hungover or half asleep. I understand that this is a casual ice cream shop, but she was dressed in a baggy tshirt and baggy sweatpants like she had just rolled out of bed. After she made our $33.30 order, she disappeared again, until another couple came in and stood for at least 5 minutes before she reappeared and gave them the same RBF that she had given us.

As far as the ice cream... they hit their mark with the over-the-top looks, but fell way short on quality and taste. I had a mint/brownie bowl... the brownie was dry and tasteless and seemed like it was a frozen product shipped in and thawed 2-3 days ago. The star was the Blue Bell ice cream, which I love, but I got $0.50 worth of mint chocolate chip ice cream hidden under a mountain of disgusting whipped cream and a terrible brownie for $12. My daughter's mermaid shake was visually appealing, but it tasted awful (literally made my wife gag when she tried it)... my daughter's favorite thing about it was the rock candy. Again, a ridiculous mound of whipped cream and an inedible mermaid tail added to the looks-over-taste theme. She did say that she was happy that she at least got a cool jar so she could go home and make her own milkshake that tastes better.

The shop itself is a cute little place that was fairly clean, but sitting at the next table was a couple that appeared to be homeless and using the shop to get out of the heat (one of them had no shoes and they both smelled). My wife also went to the bathroom and told me there was no toilet paper.

People come to a place like this for the experience, not for Blue Bell ice cream (I can get that at Food Lion). For a place that looks so great on social media, the actual experience fell way short. There are some simple things that could be fixed to make it much better, and customer service is something that can absolutely make or break this place.

Not sure if we will be back...