Grand Ole Creamery — Restaurant in Saint Paul

Ice Cream Ice Cream!! Who screams for Ice Cream? Of course I do! I've heard many good things about Grand Ole Creamery from my buddies in the College of Pharmacy! I just haven't had a chance to try it until recently. My girlfriend and I were in the area and was craving some ice cream. We've been going to Izzy's in St. Paul, which is delicious and worth trying if you haven't been yet, but wanted to try somewhere new. We both hate Sebastian Joe's, so that will never be an option.

We decided to give Grand Ole Creamery a shot! It's located in a very nice suburban neighborhood near Saint Paul. It's right down on grand, which is filled with lots of good eateries like Cafe Latte. Amazing. I just love that part of Saint Paul. It's very calm, soothing, very nice place to chill.

Upon entrance, you will most likely be greeted with a fairly long line, especially on nice summer days! The line can be a little slow, but it will be well worth the wait!! Upon entrance, you can smell the aroma of them making the waffle cones! It smells like heaven..all that butter and cream in the air. Amazing smell. We decided to try a few different flavors while we were there. We sampled the birthday cake, sweet cream and Black Hills Gold.

After sampling, we decided to get 2 single scoops. My girlfriend got the birthday cake and I got the Black Hills Gold. They were both outstanding to me. So good!!! The birthday cake was really good. It was perfectly sweetened, unlike the overly sweet ones they make at Cold Stones Creamery. It truly tasted like my birthday while eating birthday cake flavor ;). So good. I got the Black Hills Gold, which was a very rich version of cookies and cream. That one was really good too. I usually don't eat or like Cookies and Cream, but upon sampling, I fell in love with this one. Black Hills Gold was very good! It's probably not the healthiest option, but man, was that one good!!

Lastly, we both got it on the waffle bowl. We couldn't resist the smell. It just smelled so good, we had to get it. However, it wasn't that great. Partly was probably due to the fact that the waffle got soggy by the time we finished the ice cream. I'd probably recommend the cone version if you want to try the waffle. The waffle isn't that special. I don't think I'll ever come across a cone as good as Ici Ice Cream in Berkeley. Man do I miss that place, but until then I will have to stick with Izzy's and Grand Ole Creamery.

I highly recommend Izzy's and Grand Ole Creamery over the unoriginal Sebastian Joe's. There is nothing special about Sebastian Joe's. I'd rather eat OTC Talenti or Haagen Daz than Sebastian Joe's. If you want to try some unique flavors then go to Izzy's. Though Grand Ole Creamery does have some different flavors like Taro, but a lot of their flavors are similar to each other. They have like 3/4 different takes of Cookies and Cream, which all taste similar to each other. Go to Grand Ole Creamery if you want high quality traditional ice cream flavors.

You can't go wrong with either Grand Ole Creamery or Izzy's, but you will go wrong if you go to...

Updated 8/14: Received a call from the person who took my order on Wed 8/9, admitted fault was on their end and it should've never happened. Am being refunded half the order. I am revising my review.

(original review) I arrived at 1210p today to pick up an order of 44 individual scoops of ice cream for a work event (which I had to call in on Wed 8/9, as your website still doesn’t accept online pickup orders--by the way, it was also down in April when I tried to place the same type of order for multiple single scoop orders to go for a meeting). My credit card was charged for it, receipt sent to my email, etc. When I arrived to pick it up, all 5 employees working were surprised, no order was ready for me. Rebecca, who appeared to be in charge, said to me "Oh none of my coworkers told me." She asked if I could then tell her all 44 individual scoops that I ordered, which I couldn't because the receipt I was provided via email was only for the total amount, not a breakdown of items (again, since their online ordering system was not working).

They finally started packing at 1225p and I left at 1245p (work meeting starting at 3p).

THEN...when I got to work, NONE OF THE CUPS HAD THE FLAVORS WRITTEN ON THEM. When I called back to be like how am I supposed to serve these, the employee on the phone also told me they used the same scoop for all ice cream flavors. Cross contaminating all scoops. I have ordered this for an office appreciation event, and we have people who have deadly nut allergies, Celiac disease, religious needs to avoid dairy etc. How am I supposed to serve this to them? I spent over $275 on ice cream and I don't know how I am going to be able to serve this without at least half of the people in the room being alienated from enjoying what was supposed to be a treat for them. I am now on the phone with an employee who is telling me that they don't label individual flavors as that is not their protocol. I mean, how are you supposed to tell Mango and Peach apart (they're the same color), and Chocolate vs. Coffee vs. Chocolate Peanut Butter apart (again, SAME COLOR)?!?!?!??! He also is telling me that it is their procedure to use the same scoop unless they're told there are nut allergies in which case they use a new scoop but that we should expect cross...

Let me start by saying that this is a favorite place. In my younger years, I would rollerblade along the river and stop for a single split for dinner. Because I could! To me, the single split is iconic brilliance.

This was also go-to comfort food during covid when you could drive up and get pints of ice cream brought to your car.

Tonight on a "date night" with my goodest boy, we stopped here on the way home.

I got 3 pints, 1 waffle cone and 3 pup cups.

A couple of things of note:

The waffle cone was very dark and had a hint of burnt flavor. As it wasn't as enjoyable as usual, I chose not to waste the calories, so instead of giving my dog the pup cup on the way home I just gave him bits of the waffle cone.

I may be wrong but I thought they used to put a little malt ball at the bottom of the cone. I wasn't paying attention and I ended up having quite a bit of ice cream on me when I got home. It's laundry night so not a big deal. Just a good thing to recognize that you'll need extra napkins for the bottom so you don't get dripped on. I am rather surprised that it was used when it was that dark.

I didn't notice that the pints that they hand pack are more expensive than the ones in the cooler. Luckily one of the people working pointed that out which helped save me money. On that point, the person ringing me up was new and didn't know the special of buying 2 pints getting the third half off. Luckily I caught it and it was adjusted.

One of my bigger disappointments is that the pup cups are just commercially purchased ice cream cups. From being at multiple other ice cream establishments that have given us just small scoops of ice cream it seemed a bit of a letdown. Definitely not worth it.

The service was fast, the employees were friendly, the place is always clean, and the ice cream...