BELLEVUE, Ky. -- I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!
If there's one thing I've learned this summer, it's that people in Cincinnati love ice cream and really love their mom and pop ice cream shops.
I asked for suggestions on Facebook recently for your favorite ice cream shop. The list was long, but there were a few names that just kept popping up. I'm going to explore so many of them in the next two months, but I went to Schneider's Sweet Shop in Bellevue, Kentucky, first.
RELATED: Schneider's Sweet Shop has offered homemade ice cream and candies since 1939
The owner, Jack Schneider, and his wife have been running this shop for 30 years, but it's been in Jack's family since 1939. The history is rich and alive in this Fairfield Avenue shop.
If you head to the ice cream counter first, you'll see the list of standard ice cream offerings, all homemade. But go outside the normal and check out the ice ball. First you pick an ice cream flavor. Then you pick a snow cone flavoring to pour over shaved ice. Jack surrounds the ice cream in shaved ice to form a ball and pours the flavoring on top. Ice ball!
Ice and ice cream meet in an amazing harmony of smooth and crunch ... not to mention the sugar! I tried vanilla ice cream with peach syrup, and it was divine.
Beyond the ice cream is their chocolate counter. Wow! Mr. Schneider tells me the number of opera creams they sell in one year surpasses every other chocolate in the counter display. It's then followed by turtles, caramels and fudge. Jack suggests the opera creams with dark chocolate.
If you are looking for a new place to try for a cold or sweet treat, let me pass along the good word about Schneider's Sweet Shop. Take your treat outside to their patio and take in the city of Bellevue.
