Ice Cream Chronicles (Year 3): Going Straight to the Source

During my first year of these Ice Cream Chronicles, I got the pleasure of experiencing the ice cream from Toft's, founded in 1900 and holding the honor of being Ohio's oldest operating dairy. Alas, I was chagrined to find out during my most recent travels through Fremont that the small little company store located in town had closed down.

That fact, combined with the intensely hot and humid weather we experienced during our Cleveland mini-excursion, meant only one thing: it was time to venture directly to the source - Toft's combination headquarters and ice cream parlor located in Sandusky, home of the famed Cedar Point Amusement Park.

Ice Cream Chronicles (Vol. 14): Always Young's At Heart

Starting as a Jersey cow milk seller around 1960, Young's Jersey
Dairy has evolved into a multi-faceted provider of numerous dairy
products, food, and family-fun-oriented attractions over the years

Truth be told, I found out on my first visit to Young's Jersey Dairy that it is not a destination strictly for the ice cream. My scoops of butter pecan and strawberry were solid but a bit lackluster when compared with some of the more celebrated Ohio-based ice cream purveyors I have managed to visit. In fact, their ice cream may be best experienced in milkshake form: on this particularly hot and humid day, I admit it would've been easy to stray from the immediate task at hand of reviewing the ice cream on its own merits based on the numerous milkshake orders from folks in front and behind me and their subsequent satisfied reactions after their first sips.

Young's ice cream may be a notch below other Central Ohio purveyors
of this frozen treat, but it's still plenty good enough to please the crowds

However, in this particular case, Young's ice cream must be considered as part of what is an overall winning package. From their start in 1958 selling their Jersey cow milk to the public, this family-owned dairy has slowly but certainly expanded their product and food offerings. Along with basic cheese varieties such as Colby, Baby Swiss and Pepper Jack, Young's offers up cheddar curds in a multiple variations, including cajun, dill and habanero. Their deep-fried curds were prominently displayed on a menu of their other lunchtime offerings such as burgers, hot dogs, and chicken strips; as delectable as they looked, I decided they would have to wait for another visit.

Young's also can accommodate those who would like a picnic-style experience or those looking for a more formal meal. For the former, Barnabe's Walnut Grove can be rented by groups of 50 or more with catering provided by the dairy; these diners are allowed access to other aspects of Young's attractions (more on this later.) In regards to the latter, the Golden Jersey Inn, opened in 1998 in a timber-lined building to the north of the main dairy facility, offers Amish- and home-styled dishes for lunch and dinner as well as weekend breakfast hours.

Besides their dairy products, Young's Dairy offers attractions that
have proven to be pleasing over all age ranges and continues
to draw the crowds to its Yellow Springs-area facility

Perhaps the biggest part of the Young's appeal lies in the previously alluded to attractions. These lie firmly in the pre-Internet/video game/mobile device style of activities that continue to appeal to numerous generations and all age ranges. From activities related to the dairy's everyday functions (visitors are encouraged to experience what goes on on this working farm) to fun physical pursuits such as golf (both putt-putt and driving-range variations), batting cages and pedal carts, to seasonal/annual events like corn mazes, pumpkin picking and vintage truck shows, it's no surprise why Young's has continued to be a destination in the Yellow Springs area of Ohio over the years.

I can now rest assured that I will be much better "prepared" on my next visit to Young's. I will hopefully have in tow a group of friends or family who will engage me in savagely competitive games of putt-putt golf or endeavor to knock solid liners back up the middle in the batting cages. I also hope to have some younger folk who would appreciate the goat petting pen and "ooh and ahh" at the sight of milking cows. And finally, I want to sample some of Young's other dairy products, perhaps those visibly-enticing deep fried cheese curds I spied on this first visit.

And I will top it all off with a milkshake. And I am sure it will be quite tasty indeed.

Young’s Jersey Dairy
6880 Springfield-Xenia Rd
Yellow Springs, OH  45387
(937) 325-0629
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Ice Cream Chronicles (Pt. 10): Everyone Needs Their Toft's

The front of the Fremont parlor location

While my final ice cream post for the summer of 2014 is about the Sandusky-based Toft's, in reality it's about much more than the ice cream from Ohio's oldest dairy. 

Founded in 1900, Toft's was actually one of the first Ohio-based ice cream brands I saw advertised here in the Columbus metro area. A freezer case where one could grab a couple scoops of their ice cream is available to customers of The Andersons General Store in the Sawmill Road area of Northwest Columbus. Ironically, seeing it on every visit to the store was one of the main reasons why I never sampled it since moving here, despite my finding out that this is just about the only place in Central Ohio to sample their products. I figured since it was always there, I could have it anytime I wanted.

In the scope of things, Toft's is a real gem in that it remains locally and family owned. Their parlor at their headquarters in Sandusky is from all I read a truly nice setup and worth a visit (and yes, that is on the docket for me.) However, it may not be the optimal way for a neophyte to their products to sample their ice cream. From various visitors' reviews, it appears that they do not allow traditional sampling (e.g. using little spoons to sample various flavors) like most other ice cream places. This is made up quite a bit by the size of the scoops they serve you: they are HUGE, essentially making a small-size a large and a large-size something closer to ludicrous-size (to borrow a Spaceballs reference.) It seems like visitors would be best served by knowing what they really, really want and bringing a large appetite or a friend (or perhaps both.)

The interior of Toft's Ice Cream Parlor in Fremont

Fortunately, there is a remedy for this: Toft's has two more parlors nearby, and my spouse and I had the pleasant opportunity to make a side trip to the location in Fremont (which does allow sampling) on a jaunt to the supermarket to pick up a few items.

Residing in an aging strip mall in the northwest portion of town, this Toft's parlor doesn't look like much from the outside. The interior also shows the age of the building it resides in, but is otherwise well-kept and roomy. Besides their ice cream and related items such as sundaes and shakes, a variety of lunch items are available, including locally-based products like Ballreich's potato chips, Tony Packo's pickles, and a sandwich featuring Root's shredded chicken.

As lunchtime was just around the corner, we did our fair sampling of their many selections (including the Key Lime Pie, Mackinac Island Fudge and the Black Sweet Cherry) before settling on a single scoop option (scoops are very reasonably priced, from $2.75 for a single scoop to $5 for a quadruple.) Our selections, the Muddy's Sea Salt Slam (released in concert with the Toledo Mud Hens baseball team, this flavor sports salty caramel streaks and chocolate covered peanuts in vanilla ice cream) and my standard butter pecan were very similar to the quality and texture of the ice creams we sampled at Velvet Ice Cream in Utica.

Sunday scoops are hard to beat

What made this visit stick out here was this was the first visit with a youngster in our tow (my spouse's niece.) Her eyes lit up when we asked her if she wanted to join us on our supermarket trip, and even more so when we said we were going to drop by Toft's. And for her, there was no debate: it was Tons of Turtles (a caramel extravaganza featuring chocolate-caramel turtles and caramel slivers inside a french vanilla base) or bust.

I realized as we sat together enjoying our scoops that, despite all the enjoyment that my adult-aged self has received from my visits to all these ice cream shops, it never could match the raw excitement you get as a youngster. Ice cream, whether it be from the iconic ice cream truck and its blaring music, the mom & pop shop on the corner, or the big chain place at the mall, is one of the first things with which one typically identifies and associates as one grows up. This is a place that lets you swirl sweet memories into a base of your own special selection of flavors, and this affiliation often carries through to adulthood, no matter if you have moved on to "better" ice cream.

In other words, everyone who loves this frozen treat inherits and, in a way, needs their version of Toft's. So whatever name your own Toft's goes by, remember it fondly, fly their flag proudly, and keep licking away.

2017 Update: Toft's location in Fremont closed down in 2016.  However, their corporate location in Sandusky continues on business as usual - for more information on them, please consult my blogpost detailing our visit.

Location Visited:
Toft's Dairy Ice Cream Parlor
1306 Oak Harbor Rd
Fremont, OH 43420
(419) 334-7400

Headquarters:
3717 Venice Road
Sandusky, OH 44870
(419) 625-5490