Mount Desert Island Ice Cream — Restaurant in Washington

If you frequent the state of Maine, you may have fond memories of evening strolls to a Mount Desert Island Ice Cream shop. Now you don't have to book that Southwest flight to Portland, Maine to get your ice cream fix. Two DC locals in partnership with Linda, the chain owner, opened their first DC location in Mount Pleasant (the perfect neighborhood for a community feeling ice cream shop).

The shop itself is pretty small, but they maximize the space well. There are long window seating near the main window and a larger outdoor patio. As a former resident of Mount Pleasant, I recommend getting your ice cream and taking a stroll down Mount Pleasant Street and take in the local restaurants, stores, and parks. After all, they say Mount Pleasant is a "village within the city."

Mount Desert Island ice cream as a product is made in small batches giving it a more homemade taste to each scoop. Like all ice cream shops, you can get your ice cream in a cup, cone, or waffle cone. Unlike other ice cream shops, Mount Desert Island Ice Cream makes more bold flavors. You have the usual suspects like cookies and cream and sweet cream, but they also have unique flavor combinations like coriander berry streusel and khulfi (a more savory ice cream made with pistachios, cardamon, safron, almond and sweetened condensed milk). They also have a handful of vegan options.

In terms of portions, they give you a healthy scoop. I ordered two scoops (sweet cream and cookies and cream) on a waffle cone and it was more than enough. Perhaps that's why it costs more than $7 for two scoops on a waffle cone.

If you need an ice cream fix, Mount Desert Island Ice Cream is a...

We live in the neighborhood and have been here many times. I’m getting to the point where I can’t quite justify continuing to patronize this place anymore because of the inconsistent service. The ice cream is generally pretty good. However, we’ve had multiple bad interactions where staff were really unfriendly or awkward when the situation just didn’t need to be. Like the time they dramatically overcharged us - they added an entire extra cone onto the bill (mind you, we only ordered two cones, nothing complicated.) I pointed this out and they treated me so skeptically. Like, we ordered two and you charged us for three, it’s right there on the iPad? The scoop sizes are also all over the place. Tonight, we both ordered two scoops in a cup. They came out and my husband’s cup was clearly two inches higher than mine. So I held them up to the cashier and said, “are you sure these are both two scoops?” And she was bald faced enough to say they were “the same, maybe one was slightly more than the other.” She then offered to “remake the order” but honestly just admit that you didn’t put enough on one and add a little more on top! It’s not hard. This place charges $7 for ice cream and the sizes are already not huge. I just never thought an ice cream shop would gaslight me...

Are you craving an ice cream experience dripping with pretension and served with a scoop of disdain? You're in luck! This place is a veritable mecca for the snooty ice cream connoisseur, where, somehow, even the ice cream boxes seems designed to remind you of your inferior taste buds. The ice cream base is the culinary equivalent of a shrug – neither impressing nor offending, just existing in a state of bland mediocrity. You'd think with such outlandish flavors they'd at least nail the basics.

While one server managed to be as cute as a button, the rest of the staff seemed to have mistaken their ice cream scoops for switch blades, looking down their noses at anyone who dared to not be intimately familiar with the nuances of brigadiero or Hojicha. Because clearly, if you're not fluent in obscure dessert dialects, you're not worthy of their artisanal creations.

Somehow, even the other clientele are insufferable.

But perhaps the most damning indictment came not from within its walls, but from the streets outside! As I was regaling my family with tales of our ordeal, a random stranger passing by felt compelled to chime in with a hearty agreement. And if that's not a sign that this place is more style than substance, I don't know what is.

At least it...