Pat's Main Street Ice Cream — Restaurant in Southington

I've lived in CT for a number of years, and have yet to find a place with truly great ice cream. After reading all of the gushing reviews about Pat's, I made the half hour drive to try it out. I was underwhelmed.

My experience truly began before leaving the house. I tried browsing the web site on my phone. All I was really looking for was a menu of sorts to see at least the majority of flavor offerings. Nope. Nothing. Plenty of pictures of nothing in particular, but the best you'll find is "Many Hard Ice Cream Flavors". To make matters worse, the web site is NOT mobile-friendly and browsing it on a large-screen phone was very clunky at best. It seems that not much thought has really been given to the web site since someone believes it's appropriate to state that the site is copyrighted "2011-2021". While I'm quite disappointed in the lack of usable content from the web site, it really doesn't have anything to do with the review of the business itself.

The on-site experience started with parking. Poor. There are only a few spots directly in front of the business, no handicapped spaces, and ZERO room to either maneuver to back into a space or to be able to back out when leaving. Keep in mind that this business is located on Main Street for a bit of an understanding of what you might have to deal with for traffic.

Once inside, I was glad to see quite an array of hard ice cream flavors being offered. The staff was friendly and pleasant, and everything appeared nice and clean. I was immediately suspicious of the "Home made waffle cones", though, as they have paper wrappers stuck on them with sugar syrup just like factory-made ones. I liked that they have cone holders at the register so you aren't fumbling with your cone while trying to pay the tab. There's a LOT of air movement at the register from a fan, however, and that makes it hard to gather up napkins (don't set them down or they'll blow away).

Prices here are similar to -slightly- better than competing ice cream stands. My cost here was more than at other places, but that's attributed directly to the fact that I got the waffle cone. Overall value, however, is about the same as other places. Although I opted for the three scoop cone, the scoops themselves were not overly generous in size. So, what I paid for a three scope cone is in line with what I would pay elsewhere for a two scoop cone with the same amount of ice cream.

The waffle cone was better (fresher?) than the others I've typically seen or tried here in CT. But, it was most definitely NOT of the "home made" caliber quality of many other ice cream stands throughout New England. The places that offer the best hand-made cones literally have the batter and irons in the back and have one person dedicated to making the cones while six or eight windows are dedicated to serving ice cream.

The ice cream has a nice texture on the tongue, but I found the flavor to be "weak" and it melted far too quickly. When it did melt, it also seemed to be quite watery.

With all of the devout followers Pat's has, they're clearly doing something right. For me, however, I...

Pat's Main Street Ice Cream in Southington is unfortunately a 50/50 mix of good and bad. Good stuff, the Amaretto Cherry ice cream is fantastic!! Inside is very colorful and upbeat looking. Good variety of flavors to choose from. Short blonde girl serving was smiling and friendly. Bad stuff, outside tables very dirty and worn, front door handle is beyond anything close to acceptable, please clean that! I do sympathize with the economic times Pat's must be going through ... but no ice cream samples?? Come on, that's the hallmark of any good place that you get to try some. Other reviews that say the owner is awful ... eh maybe, but I think it's more of that "Main Street" USA is a thing of the past and now his business is forced to live in this world. Worth a visit to try the ice cream and keep the Main Street dream alive...

Went here to celebrate my father's 80th birthday. I had the Walnut Maple hard ice cream.

My friend had the soft serve, which was the absolute best he has EVER tasted! And, my friend was called "Signor Gelato" when he visited his relatives in Rome (and ate ice cream like a fanatic). This is certainly top-quality ice cream and the best that we've ever had here in the states.

BTW, my Dad loved the MUSIC as well. We spent the whole time talking about the music as we ate our delicious ice cream! Definitely going back again and again! We are talking Mott the Hoople, Def Leppard, Queen, to name a few.

We followed-up for a visit on September 5th and took some photos of their current flavors. That time I tried the Maine Black Bear; highly...