The Tally for my big 5 ice cream stands, schedual for next year.

[UPDATE] Jay Gee's Salem has announced that they will be open year round.  Because the hours are longer, this puts Jay Gee's at Second Place, knocking Bedford Farms down to 3rd place.

It's past and it's flying so fast, that 2012 came and went.  This summer I started and it's already Thanksgiving.  But let's rundown on the big five ice cream stands and tally them  as far as the Season Lengh.

Season Lengh:

FIRST PLACE: Richardsons.  Open year round, doesn't close till 9:30pm, even in the winter!  So, even in January, you can still go there for a late night ice cream!  Even the minigolf is open, so long as there's no snow on the ground.

SECOND PLACE: Jay Gee's. Open year round (Salem NH), Late February through October (Methuen, MA)

Ice Cream: Open 12am-9pm (10pm Memorial Day through Labor Day)
Activities: Open March through October Fridays 3-8, Saturdays 12-9, Sundays 12-8.  Summer hours (Memorial Day-Labor Day) Daily 12-10p
 

THIRD PLACE: Bedford Farms. They are open year round.  Winter hours are 12pm to 6pm at Concord, 12pm to 7pm at Bedford.  Spring Hours (March through Memorial Day) are 12pm-9pm, Memorial Day through Labor Day 12pm-10pm, Labor Day through October 12pm-9pm, November 12pm-6pm Mon-Thurs, 12pm-9pm Fridays, Saturdays

 

FOURTH PLACE: Rota Springs Farm
Open Early March through End of October/Beginning of November
March-August: 11:30am to 9:30pm
September 11:30am-9pm
October 11:30am-8pm

Some various activities are available including hay rides and a produce store.

FIFTH and LAST PLACE: Kimball Farms.
Open Late March through basically Columbus Day.
Ice Cream stops production Columbus Day and then open till they sell out in Westford.  Activites at Westford remains open till a weekend after Columbus Day.  Pitch and Putt and Driving Range, however, remains open till the condition goes bad.  Country Store is, however, year round at Westford, and don't close till Christmas Eve in Lancaster.  ICE CREAM open Late March through Memorial Day 10am-9pm, Memorial-Labor Day 10am-10pm, Labor Day to Columbus 10am-9pm, sometimes after Columbus Day till they run out.

Well, not surprising, Kimball Farms, after my most rift of the company is in last place.  This especially burns me about is, since they have a country store cafe and another ice cream stand 20 minutes from here that's open year round, and every time I try to speak to Kimball, they refuse to even budge to even bring in a few flavers to have a cup of ice cream in the country store during the winter.  Now I "sort of" understand Rota Springs, since they are far out alone, and I believe that, even a Sterling Farms Ice Cream, closes early.  But for a place like them, Rota Springs does still close late comparing to other ice cream stands in the area, even Kimballs Lancaster, which closes weeks earlier then Rota.  But my big praise to Jay Gee's and Bedford Farms for extending the season, with Jay Gee's offering to give a year-round a try to Salem NH if enough customers come in.  Also, not to mention, Kimball Farms is a high-profile place with lots of customers, so it questions me why they are still seasonal while other low-profile ice cream stands like Mad Willie's, Trombetta's Farms and Tasty Treat open year round and make money.  Kimball Farms claims "demand" is the reason, which is bulls__t, since small ice cream places like Trombetta Farms manages to do fine through the winter selling ice cream.

For Next year, here's the scedualed seasons (persumably)

Richardsons, Bedford Farms, and Jay Gee's (Salem) will be open year round.
Jay Gee's Methuen: February 23rd through October 27th.
Rota Springs: March 2nd through November 3rd
Kimball Farms: March 26th through October 14th, later in Westford


Tasty Treat - Ashland MA

On Route 135 in Ashland, this place is actually an ice cream-local type sandwich luncheon shop that features mini golf.  It's actually a place that I grew up during my childhood.  I only remember this place maybe as an ice cream stand, becuase we just go here to play some golf and ice cream later on.

But the one thing I have to say is that it does look like Dairy Queen with an extended blue roof.  As a matter of fact, growing up, I kept thinking that this may be a sister of Dairy Queen because of how I reconize dairy queen with a barn-shaped roof top while I go here at Tasty Treat.  Even they sell some blizzard-like treats here, but they are actually rockets.  But growing up, I normally ordered a twist, as reconized by the picture on top of the word: "tasty treat".

But now it's about 20 years later, and knowing more about this place, this place is a luncheon place that also has ice cream.  It's got 20 flavers of ice cream, two sherbets, three seasonal flavers in which pumpkin is sold in the fall, eggnog near christmas, and peach in the summer, two soft serve flavers (chocolate, vanilla, swirl), two seasonals which is coffee and orange serbet, and six frozen yogurt flavors.  The other thing was that the ice cream here came from Richardsons.  For a place that's low-profile, they do manage to cram a menu of grill and seafood and ice cream in one small shack here.  Furthermore, this place is open year round, unlike Dairy Queen (Not pesturing Dairy Queen anyways since I am just not crazy about big chain ice cream places, though I do admit that Cold Stone Creamery is a good ice cream place.)

Now on to the golf course.  It's only 4 bucks, which is dirt cheap, but yea.  It's run down and certainly not worth the trip from far away if you planning to do mini golf.  The paint is pretty much faded, and you could actually see some stuff rot behind the paint job.  Also, the green is a bit dirty and the thing that was supposed to be water appears to be black dirt in it.  A true sign that the place was just poorly maintained.  One thing's for sure is that there's no one playing here.  In fact, I could remember going here on a summer day, and still see that mini golf place empty, sometimes one or two people playing in it.  But surely, the mini golf place is more of an eyesore than an attraction.

But anyways, my ice cream was green monster, pumpkin, and german chocolate cake.  Can't say much, because the ice cream's from Richardsons. But anyways, it was a typical banana split, but served in a container similer to what they serve meatball subs in at Rota Springs.  But they put in a fair amount of fruit inside my sundae.

Anyway for a place like this small and low-profile, one has to wander why a high profile ice cream stand like Kimball Farms decides to remain a seasonal ice cream place despite having a cafe in the country serving soups and sandwiches.  But it's kind of more like my local sandwich shop place.  But still, Kimball Farms could do about 5 flavers of ice cream sold in cups, so while lots of people far away isn't going to go to Kimballs, locals and regular customers there can still have some form of ice cream.  It's nice to say that there's a message on the Window instead of mocking me on other places with the message: "Closed for the Season", it says: "Please come inside!"  But my last words are, this place is more for the locals then the people who take trips here.

TASTY TREAT - Ashland

Open Year-round
Open 11am-10pm all year

Rota Spring's Last day of the season.

Well, right when my vacation has ended, Rota Spring had it's final days.  Flavors were short in number, the store is close to empty, and the sun angle is low.  A sure sign that winter is right around the corner.

Flavors is short and yup.  No indian pudding.  Muaa, muaa.  At least I did stock up on a couple of courts of it.  Well, I did had my meatball sub as usual.  I did however have a three-scoop cone with graham centeral, wild bery crunch, and pumpkin.

Well, this place will reopen March 2nd.  Well, November and December will fly by with the holidays.  There's January that is the worst month of the year, and then we have February which we have Valentines day.  And shortly after words, ice cream stands will count down the days before they reopen.

Trombetta's Farm - Marlboro MA

That's the logo that greatly describes this place.  A garden center, an ice cream shop, and a mini golf course that's held indoors.  Also, the street is named Farm Road, which makes this place rather a bit more easier to find, although, the airport next to it could question the people who are looking for this place to try out this ice cream and even try the course here.

What's even more nice about this place, is that although from November to April that they are only open on weekends from 10am to 6pm (Not that I don't mind, since people are working on weekdays anyways) as opposed to Kimball Farms which they shut tight for the winter and mock me with a country store cafe that refuses to sell cups of ice cream despite them selling them half gallons, this place is actually open year round.  So, if you find this ice cream place to be great, there's no need to stock up, and you can just buy quarts if you are planning to have some ice cream that week or buying some for the holidays.

But aside from the lovely logo, this place feels like being in a garden while you are enjoying the ice cream or just playing around some mini golf.  The decision to make this a greenhouse really does make it feel kind of like outdoors when you are going in the greenhouse, while at the same time, you won't get rained on (or snowed on during the winter) when you are playing mini golf.  I do remember the Volcano hole where you can try a few times to hit the ball into the hole (but the last time, I can't find the hole when I played it).  Also, this place makes their own ice cream, instead of relying on another place for it.

But I have to say, the amount of flavers aren't as much as the ones you see at Kimballs or Richardson's, as this place only has about 20 to 30 flavers, as opposed to Kimball's 41 flavers and Richardson's 53, but they do sell seasonal flavers during the year.  They also sell children's novalties in case if the child decides that he or she want's that if he or she doesn't want the flavers up top.  Hopefully, they would sell egg nog ice cream during Thanksgiving or Christmas.  Speaking of ice cream, I did order mocha chip-Apple Crisp-Ginger banana split. 

Now, they sure did put a LOT of fruit inside this.  Lots of strawberries in it.  But the apple crisp ice cream is just as good as the one in Richardsons.  Tastes just like apple crisp, instead of the awful cinnamon overload ice cream from Jay Gee's.  I do believe that the mocha chip tastes quite a bit like chocolate chocolate chip, and the ginger ice cream is a bit light in color.  It would be nice if they had indian pudding though.

TROMBETTA FARM - Marlboro Mass

Open Year Round

Spring Hours (April-May): 10am-8pm
Summer Hours: (June-August) 10am-9pm
Fall Hours: (September-October) 10am-8pm
Winter Hours (November-March) 10am-6pm Weekends Only

Sandy Aftermath: Rota Springs

After the historic storm hits (Well, didn't lose power per-se, but they turned it off for a time during a repair (though, not long enough to cause my ice cream to spoil), I went to see how things were doing at Rota Springs.  Well, their season is ending this Sunday, though, I did stock up for the season on egg nog, apple pie, monster mash, and indian pudding.

Well, it didn't effect this place that much, other then losing part of a tree in the cow's pasture, and the fact that they didn't have lemonade, so I had to do without a drink.  However, they still had my meatball sub.  I had a brownie sundae with indian pudding and monster mash.

I think they should have called this "Brownie Boat".  Anyways, what makes this better then Kimballs is the fact you can have two flavers.

 

I did checked Kimball Farms, they are fine.  They just don't serve ice cream right now with the exception of half gallons (as of right now, Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry, Coffee, Black Raspberry, Banana, and Butterscotch).  Grrrgh, if only they would open the boxes and serve them cups of ice cream in the country store.