Handel's Homemade Ice Cream Rancho Santa Margarita — Restaurant in Rancho Santa Margarita

OMG, if you want ice cream a you are within 10 miles of this place you cannot go wrong. Recently opened, in the same shopping center as Target and Trader Joe's I found Handel's just curious why there was a 25 person line at 9pm on a SAT night. So here's price, product and service and store... The price is extremely fair probably double the quantity you get at the local 31 flavors and really thats the only competition. I had a waffle cone chocolate dipped as a double. Double somehow gets double scoops, so about 4 scoops of ice cream, Wow! The product was amazing. For the double I had vanilla and black cherry. I've found some ice cream to be too sweet, this had distinct flavors and there was a huge list of them to choose from. The cone was set with a generous thick 1.5" rim of semi sweet chocolate, perfect. It was very similar to Ben and Jerry's with a thick air free consistency. Not too icy, almost sticky, soft but set well enough that it wasn't instantly melty. Although we were all enjoying @ night. Service was excellent, RSM people are quite a nice bunch to begin with. The staff was patient and explained the product and ways to order to me. I could see the one of the staff being attentive to doing wipe downs and sweeping for the others. Last the store was unique in that the dip stations were lined up in the center of the store. The frontage was a bit skinny with only a few tables n chairs. So you order and then your server travels into this massive bank of eight (?) dip station freezers to get your flavors, impressive. Having sold ice cream I was surprised to see there was only one sink. Also no handy way to quickly rinse the scoopers being used. This slowed the process down a touch but things were being done cleanly. Not really a complaint, ice cream like this is worth the wait. Last please look at the menu possibly already posted a couple times. They do banana splits, sundaes, there's many toppings, customize however you like to enjoy. No, I don't work for them. I really enjoyed my ice cream and was struck by the value and service. Check out my pic of the chocolate dipped waffle cone double with black cherry on top and vanilla on bottom, epic... Bring a friend, chat in line and enjoy this already very popular ice cream. Thx Handel's and...

My family and I stopped by as we had never been to Handel's and we LOVE ice cream. We saw a line and thought this must be amazing! The staff was very attentive and friendly, but the ice cream left something to be desired. Especially for the price we paid. One family member got the cheesecake with Oreo and disliked the taste (said it had a sour/bitter taste) so they ordered an additional scoop of something else while they were scooping my pistachio. On the reselect they chose a black raspberry truffle (or something like that). They said it was better than the first, but still mediocre and too sweet. My pistachio was also VERY sweet. I basically ended up eating the bites with nuts because that balanced out the sugar and tossed the rest. Had high hopes, but overly sweet...

I'm sort of glad this is a 15 minute drive from my house, because I would not have a bikini ready body ever again. We love this place so much! There are so many good flavors and it's always been such a joy to go here. Every time we decide to go, we're almost giggling talking about what flavors we're going to get. We're both fully grown adults and we talk about this place like we're 10. My husband's favorite is the mint chocolate and mine are s'mores and the blue cookie monster. I also love their Oreo and cookie dough. The employees are also super nice and always helpful. 10 stars out of 5 for being our favorite ice cream place and for always being a pleasant,...