Carvel Ice Cream

CLOSED! :-(
I’m part desperately sad and part horrified. Last week, on a random weeknight after Chinese food, I had a Carvel urge. Carvel and Chinese food are closely connected in my heart and mind; we used to pair them together when I was growing up. Anyway, hubster and I decided to go on a Carvel run. Yippee!
Imagine my disappointment when all I saw in that area was a Jamba Juice! Eeek! I even walked up and down the block to assure myself Carvel really wasn’t there. It must have closed down.
I called and heard a phone company message that the number has been changed… connected the dots to a Carvel in Brentwood (wherever the heck that is in the 925).
I’m very, very sad. And I may have to move back to New York.

Such a cute place to grab ice-​cream on a hot day.
Had the birthday cake shake and it was a bit too sweet but i did love the sprinkles. Famous for their ice-​cream cakes, but everything looks and tastes great.

that birthday cake shake is so fattening and yummy on a hot day.
and their soft serve cones are nice and creamy.
i love the ice cream cakes that take me back to my childhood watching tv commercials with lame voice overs of cookiepuss and fudgie the big brown whale. i love that i can take my friend there and see his eyes light up… because as kids we only got carvel when we were especially good or had a birthday. how wonderful to eat carvel ice cream even when you are naughty and just BAD.

Woulda been 5 stars if Hug Me the Bear didn’t look like he had already been hugged too hard and left out to dry. Or after Huggy Bear looks after Starsky and Hutch shake him down for leads.
I think I need to back up a little for non-​east-​coast-​natives. You see, Carvel was famous long before the Beastie Boys made them infamous with the Cookie Puss prank call on their second EP. If you were a kid growing up in the ‘80s, and you got invited to a birthday party and there was no Carvel Ice Cream Cake, you would be polite to the little bastard up front, but back with your buddies, you’d be like «where the hell is the Carvel?» Growing up pudgy, there are a few joys in life you look forward to, and one of them is Carvel. :-D Since the same social dynamics apply in certain circles of Unilocal,I thought you all would understand. ;-)
Carvel ice cream cakes are chocolate on the bottom, a crumbly center, and ice cream on top, and are never more lovingly described than on the ‘80s commercials featuring a gravelly-​voiced Tom Carvel telling you about Fudgy the Whale. He sounded like he smoked a pack or 3 a day, or like he was speaking right through that cookie gravel into the mic. Very low production value but very memorable.
My last experience, before getting one Cookie Puss for JP’s b-​day, was with a scary half-​melted Jack O’ Lantern Halloween cake from Grocery Outlet about 5 years ago. Scary, but I had to have it. Fast forward to the present — since JP and I have an East Coast thing going, when we discovered Carvel in Berkeley we had to have it for the next b-​day.
Moral of the story: if you don’t want the kids talking about you behind your back, make sure your parents pony up for one of the late Tom Carvel’s creations. One day I’ll find those old commercials. ..

I grew up in Connecticut, near New York. My childhood was peppered with the sound of Tom Carvel’s gravely voice on commercials scattered throughout the years.
Characters came into my life like Cookie Puss, Hug me the Bear and Fudgie the Whale. If you don’t know these guys, you don’t know the novelty of Carvel or the sheer joy of a real ice cream cake. Ever heard of Coldstone? Baskin Robbins? Marble Slab? Morons. All of them.
Carvel was THE place to get a cake growing up. I luckily lived within 2 miles of one… that was also situated within a block of a Dairy Queen. I’m surprised I wasn’t a more rotund child now that I think about it.
I can’t describe to you the joy that lies within the cake. The layer of crumbly chocolate gravel between the soft serve vanilla and chocolate ice cream humbles me.
The vanilla ice cream tastes like no other ice cream I’ve had. Sure, it may have a less than Breyer’s quality to it, but it’s comforting. Like the smell of a new Barbie doll or Sanrio wallet. You know what I mean…
The sheer entertainment factor of walking into a party full of adults with a cake that is named Cookie Puss only adds to an event – even it if it is only for shock value. The puss adds the party! is what I always say.
When I found out they had an establishment in Berkeley, I pretty much stopped what I was doing (cuz I was about to ruin) and ran through the streets for «Operation Cookie Puss» for a friend last year.
It was such a hit, I had to do it for myself this time around. Needless to say, the crowd was pleased. And Joe doesn’t think I’m a freak bc… he GETS IT.

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLYYYY sheet.
As a kid I spent at least two weeks of every summer in upstate NY, and Carvel was a weekly experience.
Best freaking soft serve in the world. End of discussion. You can imagine how I almost orgasmed when I found that Carvel had a store out on this coast!
The only issue I had was that it took about 10 minutes to get my soft serve cone – they had just started making the ice cream and it was still a little too soft to serve. Otherwise PURE HEAVEN IN FOOD FORM.
I make trips out to Berkeley just to eat this stuff!

Carvel has a lot of different ice cream flavors as well as shake options.
However, if you’re just looking for a quick ice cream fix, I’d suggest to go on Monday-​Friday between 4 – 6 pm for their «Buy One Classic Sundae, Get the Second One Half Off — Happy Hour Special». There’s not much variety for the classic sundaes (soft serve ice cream with a choice of strawberry, hot fudge or caramel topping, finished off with whipped cream, choice of nuts, and a cherry), but it is cheap. Also, on Wednesdays, the deal switches to «Buy One Classic Sundae, Get One Free!»
Sadly, the staff always seems really confused (especially about the specials) so you might be able to get away with getting a classic sundae with one of their other ice cream flavors instead of just soft serve.

I love Carvel since I grew up on Carvel. In my book of memories as a child I would say Carvel gets 5 stars. No doubt.
Every birthday from the age of 1 to 28 included a Carvel ice cream birthday cake chock full of chocolate crunchies.. (Note: My husband forgot to get Carvel on my 29^th birthday … and broke the nearly three-​decade tradition). It was traumatic. I think I am over it now.
Well honey — This Carvel ruined my daughter’s birthday cake last year for her third birthday. I can’t believe it! They really messed it up. It was hard as a rock and her birthday is in July when ice cream is fighting with the heat not to melt. They added way too many chocolate crunchies. Honestly, I did not know it was possible to add too many chocolate crunchies.
This Carvel made a children’s ice cream cake that was horrible. The colors they used (dark purple and black) made the kid’s faces disgusting and they looked dirty in the pictures. Yuck! It was a mess.
I hope they have learned a lot since then. I have not forgiven them yet.

I was so pumped when I happened upon this Carvel out of the blue when I was in Berkeley the other day. I remember going to Carvel in Syracuse, NY, as a kid (that’s where my mom grew up, so we used to visit). I believe it was mainly soft serve then.
The service was prompt and helpful, letting me try a couple flavors (not soft serve) before deciding. I ended up getting the Bwanna … or something spelled very close to that. It’s basically some sort of creamy banana concoction, which I enjoyed. Don’t know why they call it that, though. It didn’t cost that much for a single scoop and I enjoyed it. Not quite as magically delicious as I remembered, but pretty satisfying.

Something has changed.
It is either Carvel or Me. And certainly, I am ready to believe that it is me. I subsisted largely on Carvel as a child in Miami (you know it used to be the sixth borough).
And for 12 years living in Berkeley, I thought how nice it would be to have a Carvel nearby. We even looked into FedEx-​ing a fudgy the whale from back east. But 12 years in Berkeley does something to a man. It does something to one’s tastes.
So, I really don’t know whose fault it is. But Carvel is nasty. Waxy, gummy, icy… it’s all there.
Still, it could be a case of expansion. Some places the quality goes down hill as they grow, and ingredients have to come from larger and larger suppliers. It happened to Tony Roma’s. It happened to Hooters.
Plus this place lacks the charm of the scoop shop in Sunnyland of my youth. Pity.

I want a Fudgie the Whale cake as my wedding cake.
I’m not $#@%ing kidding!
(Is there a man out there who would let me do that?)

«So Rhoda, you coulda knocked me ovah with a papah towel…
I t’ought Carvel was just on da East Coast like in Joisey, Queens or da Bronx. Nah, here I am among dem dippy hippies in Boiklee… and sonuvagun… Carvel right next to dem radicals on dat dere You See campus.»
So here’s something you should know… if you order a medium soft-​serve in a waffle cone, they actually mean extra-​large in a huge funnel. For about $ 3.50, you can get one and elicit the stares of young, anorexic students wondering why you haven’t seen a nutritionist like in… forever. Yummy, but hell, I couldn’t finish it because it just started to get super-​drippy half way up Bancroft. My fingers started to stick together like a Krazy Glue commercial.
«And look Ma, they got ya flyin’ saucers here and da deluxe flyin’ saucers with dem sprinkles and dem L’il Love cakes that I should apply directly to my thighs. Stop houndin’ me, Ma! I’ll go on a diet tomorrah.»
ICE CREAM — 4 stars… we’re talkin’ jumbo here with a lotta tongue action
AMBIANCE — 3 stars… the California version of an East Coast ice cream parlor
SERVICE — 3.5 stars… they ain’t stingy with the servings… watch out for drips on your shirt
TOTAL — 4 stars… this says it all, I think… www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqllhSa8­OHk&feature=related

Two gigantic scoops of ice cream for only $ 3!!! (The medium size is alot for one person.)
I tried cookies and cream and a coffee flavored ice cream. Both were light and not too airy or fluffy.

For months I kept hearing «Oh my god, Carvel opened up in Berkeley! Hell yeah!» or similar sentiments from my transplanted East Coast friends. I had walked by several times, but wasn’t hugely interested because of the blast of artificial vanillin-​scented air that greets you when you pass the front door. It looked like some sort of Cold Stone-​ish mall food, but people kept insisting that it was a great East Coast junk food experience.
Then I realized, these guys have soft serve ice cream, which is a real rarity in Berkeley. There’s Foster’s Freeze on University, but they are usually far from where I am, and their ice cream is watery. So I had to give Carvel a shot. The soft serve is quite decent, probably a 7 out of 10, but the weird plastic cone sheath (a cone-​dom, if you will) they give you is totally useless and mildly annoying for some reason. Overall, the place still exudes corporate sterility, but they do have soft serve and Nathan’s hot dogs for those in need of some decent junk food.

The Cookie Puss cake is so good that the Beastie Boys wrote a song about it.
That alone is worth 5 stars.

Thanks Unilocalers for making me aware of the Carvels in the Bay Area! I’m yet another East Coast transplant who grew up with Carvel soft serve and ice cream cakes. I made a trip to Berkeley this afternoon just to get some vanilla soft serve. It’s richer and creamier than most, just like I remembered.
Unlike the Dunkin Donuts that came to Sacramento in ’02 (what a disaster that was!), the California Carvel didn’t disappoint. It was a fun little nostalgic moment… but I think that’s a big part of the appeal. I wouldn’t necessarily suggest that those who haven’t had Carvel ice cream before go way out of their way to try it. It’s good stuff, though!

9 words: Vanilla soft serve on a cone with multi-​colored sprinkles!
Ahhhhhhhhhhh. Carvel. The town I grew up in had three. This is where my parents would take me after a little league game. This is where my mother took us when she craved a Brown Bonnet. This is where Wednesday was Sundae! This is where Cookie Puss & Fudgie the Whale are from. This is where my birthday cake had to come from when I was a child. If you grew up in the East you may know what I am talking about. You may even remember the commercials with Tom Carvel’s horrific gravelly voice announcing, «I’m Tom Carvel…» If not, I’ll fill you in.
Carvel is ice cream plain and simple. Nothing fancy here. But, its good. Especially, the soft serve which is the specialty. I don’t think I have ever even had their hard ice cream.
One day at work last year I had a sudden craving for Carvel. But, alas, there were none in the Bay Area and no one at work had any idea what I was talking about. A few months later my craving came back. By then, a Jersey Girl was working in my office. So, at least, she understood me. We went on line and saw that one was coming to Berkeley. Every few weeks, I would check to see if they opened. When they finally did last fall, I schlepped my Iowan boyfriend over the Bay Bridge for his first Carvel cone. It was heavenly. Instantly, I was six years old trying to not let the cone drip and to not get the ice cream all over myself. Damn, was that good!

I’m giving Carvel 4 stars because it brings back memories of my beloved NY, but not 5 because when I came here their was no COOKIE PUSS! This I found outrageous. Of course, I was told there was a cookie puss cake in the freezer. I didn’t want a cookie puss cake… I wanted a cookie puss cone… no cake!
Such a big tease you are Carvel… evoking precious memories, only to prevent me from creating more here on the West Coast. Yes, yes… I know there was a cake. I DIDN’T WANT A CAKE! sheeeesh!

Cookie Puss.
…‘nuf said.

Three of us went to Carvel Ice Cream to try it after reading about it on
. It’s a chain that started in NYC, but hadn’t heard of it until I read they opened one in Berkeley, in Los Altos too.
We sampled some ice-​cream and thought they were good. I sampled also a chocolate soft serve and thought it was fine. I picked a small half vanilla and half chocolate soft serve in a cup which was $ 2.29
My friends got regular ice cream. One friend said the ice cream was too icy-​not smooth and chunks of ice in it. Other friend liked it fine. Both smalls were pretty big. Two good size ice cream scoops!
Only three stars because they don’t have bathrooms and no tables to eat the ice cream. We walked across the street to sit down and one friend who got it on a cone was dripping all along the way.