Roadside Ice Cream Stores

On Chili Avenue, across the street from Washington Irving elementary school (in Gates), was the nearest ice cream store for we Chili folk in the mid twentieth century. Carvels had soft ice cream, usually only chocolate or vanilla. When we were kids, at seemingly random times,  our parents would load us into the station wagon to go to Carvels to get ice cream cones. Some were slow eaters, they could make an ice cream cone last forever taking one little lick at a time, and some were gobblers, like me,  who found the treat so tempting it would be devoured before we got back home .... 10 minutes, at most, away. As  teenagers we would often get sundaes -- my favorite was the Mexican Sundae which was hot fudge over vanilla ice cream with Spanish nuts sprinkled over the top. I remember the cones being 25 or 50 cents at the most, the sundaes maybe a dollar....but then, gas was 35 cents so I guess inflation makes it all comparable.

Carvels had competition. Abbotts, first at Charlotte Beach of Lake Ontario, and later across from the airport offered delicious custard, something I still seek out each trip back to Rochester (and swear, if I were more of a business entrepreneur, I could make a fortune on bringing to other parts of the country, just like Rochester hot dogs - reds & whites). And there was Meizensahl's Dairy (a dairy outlet we passed on the way to Conesus Lake) which had absolutely delicious ice cream in a great variety of flavors. Stopping at M's was a great treat after a day of swimming at the lake.

Nearly across the street from Carvels was the Idylbrook Farms (estab 1946) ice cream parlor. It was a little fancier than Carvels. You could go inside and sit down to enjoy your treats - unlike Carvels which was strictly drive by - and they served more than ice cream. I've been told that Idylbrook was a dating spot for Rochester west-enders in the days before the post-war suburbian mushroom.

One thing I always took for granted growing up in Rochester was the simple pleasure of pulling your car into an ice cream stand and getting a cone or a sundae or a milk shake. Sometimes we don't appreciate what we have until we don't have it anymore.