New SLO County shop dishes out soft-serve ice cream — and Dole Whips too
When Travis Brown and his family finally made the move from Michigan to the Central Coast in 2020, he realized there was one big thing missing from the area:
A classic soft-serve ice cream cone dipped in chocolate.
“We get out here and figure out there’s none around,” Brown said, noting that soft-serve ice cream and dipped cones in particular are pretty popular back East. “We recognized the need for it, so we decided to bring it here.”
That’s how the idea for Brown’s new Arroyo Grande restaurant, Chilly Cones Soft Serve Ice Cream, was born.
With a menu packed with food items from decades past — it even has Dole Whips — Chilly Cones capitalizes on nostalgia for favorite childhood treats.
“I think everybody’s so used to (frozen) yogurt out here and it’s a nice reprieve from the yogurt,” Brown said. “And it brings back what we were really going for: the childhood memories. They can tell you they would go someplace back in 1960 with their dad or mom or whoever it was, and it all comes back as soon as they take their first bite.”
Chilly Cones had a soft opening at 1474 E Grand Ave. on May 15.
So far, Brown said, the response has been amazing. He noted that it’s been particularly nice to see younger kids experience soft-serve ice cream for the first time.
“I don’t think they know what it is, because they haven’t been around it, you know?” Brown said with a laugh. “So they cover their faces and are like, ‘Oh my goodness. Wonderful!’ ”
Chilly Cones owner was betting on end to pandemic
Brown, a general contractor, said he has long been friends with the owners of Palo Mesa Pizza, which has four locations in Arroyo Grande and San Luis Obispo, and that they had been trying for a while to convince him and his family to move to San Luis Obispo County.
In October, Brown said, the timing became right for him and the family to move to the area. Soon after that, he began working on setting up his soft-serve shop.
“It was an opportune time to get a good commercial spot because there are more open than usual,” Brown said. “So I kind of took advantage of that and took a risk that there was going to be an upside to this pandemic.”
Luckily, he secured the vacant 1,350-square-foot space that previously housed Gerald’s Old Tyme Chocolates until it shuttered in 2018.
“It’s a great location,” Brown said. “Everything just kind of lined up, and right off the top — being in there ready for us — we didn’t do nearly as much work.”
Where others might have shied away from opening a new business, much less a restaurant, during a pandemic, Brown said he wasn’t too worried about opening during COVID-19.
In fact, he was betting on a feeling that the coronavirus pandemic was winding down.
“We’re going to come out of this sooner rather than later,” he said. “So we’re seeing how it pans out.”
What’s on the menu? Dole Whips, sloppy dogs and Frito boats
A soft-serve ice cream cone dipped in chocolate is definitely the house specialty at Chilly Cones, Brown said, but the restaurant offers an entire range of edible blasts-from-the-past.
Chilly Cones also serves up ice cream sundaes with hot fudge and caramel sauce and a range of toppings. It has milkshakes in all the classic flavors, as well as some unique options — Blue Raspberry, anyone?
In addition, the restaurant sells Dino Blasters, which are cups of soft-serve ice cream mixed with different toppings.
Chilly Cones even has Dole Whips, the pineapple-and-ice cream confection popularized at Disneyland.
One of Brown’s favorite items on the Chilly Cones menu is something a bit more savory.
“Ice cream is always a thing — it’s a treat that everybody loves. But it’s not much of a lunchtime item,” he said.
So he decided to also sell chili dogs — hot dogs in steamed buns topped with a special homemade sauce popular in the Detroit area, Brown said. Those are what the restaurant calls its Steamin’ Wieners Sloppy Dogs.
“It is a very unique sauce you are not going to find anywhere else in California probably, or almost the country,” he said. “It’s just different. I don’t know how else to describe it.”
That savory sauce is also used in Frito boats, another item popular with folks who used to get those, chili dogs and soft serve ice cream from places such as Fosters Freeze and Tastee-Freez.
“It brings a smile to people’s faces” Brown said. “They come in to get a soft serve ice cream dipped in chocolate, which is something they used to do when they were kids. They’re just so happy to come back.”
Chilly Cones is open seven days a week, from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
For more information, call 805-202-8694 or visit chillycones.com.
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