Emack & Bolio’s

Accessibility (Parking /​Wait Time)
¹⁄₁ Star: I walked. No wait.
_​_​_​_​_​
Service (Waiter /​Cleanness /​Ambiance)
¹⁄₁ Star: fast food style service. Clean place and clean ambiance.
_​_​_​_​_​
Taste (0=Not Edible /​1=Edible /​2=Good (average) /​3=Must Try!)
²⁄₃ Stars: smoothie was good.
_​_​_​_​_​
Overall Experience
⁴⁄₅ Stars
_​_​_​_​_​
Last Words
Great place for a treat after finishing the Freedom Trail

It seems like the Boston version of Ben and Jerry’s. A little hippie-​ish a couple of funky flavors and an equally long line especially in the summer. We showed up here after walking across the Charlestown bridge and needed something to cool down. Basically, it’s the first stop once you cross and it’s a pretty easy stop to make if it’s a hot day out. The flavors are pretty interesting, with the salted caramel being just as tasty as imagined. I might have come on a bad day but the service seemed like it was mostly high school kids trying to look attentive but failing, there was a little bit of exasperation there and it was a little off putting to order ice cream from sullen teenagers.

The staff was terrible and I walked away without ice cream. There were two employees. Employee 1 took my order and then I waited at the register to pay. Then both employees started taking other orders as I waited, about 3 or 4. Employee 2 began finishing orders and did not offer to let me pay before taking other customers (by the way, at the same register as me). When I mentioned that I had been waiting to pay, Employee 2 said that Employee 1 would ring me up… but Employee 1 wasn’t doing anything.

Ice cream is yummy but outside seating area needs better management. Or hire more staff, especially in high use months of summer. Lots of litter, icky sticky tables and broken chairs. Also there are no outdoor trash cans. 4 star ice cream + 1 star cleanliness = 2 stars overall.

Came in on a Saturday night close to closing (15 minutes to close) figured it would be okay because it’s already prepared ice cream. Little tanned girl behind the counter was rude. I asked about a flavor and she didn’t seem to please to answer my question. Left and my boyfriend and I said «have a good night» to the girl and an Asian man and both just gave a blank stare. Never coming back here again. Sorry but if you are open til 11, expect customers until 11 or just quit your job if you aren’t happy. Overly priced – $ 12 for small frappé and small ice cream cup.

It’s on the expensive side ($ 7 for a sundae), but the ice cream is really good and the staff is friendly.

Good ice cream, terrible staffing. It’s s beautiful, sunny Sunday afternoon and only 1 poor woman is manning the counter and the register. Luckily for E&B, the ice cream is good and the tourists don’t know about Mitch right up the hill or no one would have stayed for the more than 25 minutes wait.

I usually don’t leave reviews, and often despise the trolls who do. However, I have gone to this Emack & Bolio’s on several occasions, and while their ice cream is good, it is over priced. Also, I have never had a positive experience with their servers, and on a couple of occasions walked out. Service is extremely slow, one time I waited for 5 minutes while the one attendant cleaned dishes in the back while several people waited in line. I can name several places with high school workers who can work circles around Emack’s staff and with a smile.

Twice in two days… I couldn’t get enough of the chocolate peanut butter flack yogurt! Staff were polite during both visits. I recommend.

Walk in during the apex of summer. Let the air conditioning and supercool display case of candy dipped waffle cones chill you to the core.
Take a moment to see that, yes, Chunk o’ Funk is on today’s menu. Order it — a small is plenty — and watch as that vessel spills over with salted caramel ice cream, Oreo cookie chunks and whole chocolate dipped mini pretzels.
Pay your ~$ 6 for dense, premium ice cream.
Take a seat behind the floral cow’s udders and bask in the deliciously grippy scenario you painted yourself in to. Go for the first bite.
Black out.
Return to the now as you’re licking sweet trails of formerly frozen bliss off your left hand, as the right rubs the floral cow udder as though it were Milo Buddha’s tummy.
Because you’re lucky. Oh yes, you are.
FWIW, I saw nothing but efficient, cordial service from the employees on a quiet Tuesday night. Perhaps the complaints from other reviews are of staffers gone by?

The employees are a joke.
I live near this Emack and Bolios and have gone in several times. The employees are extremely slow and unfriendly. Since their ice cream flavors change often I called ahead to make sure they had the flavor I wanted. The girl told me they had it so I went over, when I got there I ordered my ice cream and was told they do not have the flavor today. I informed them that I just called and was told they did. The girl offered no help and didn’t even apologize. I left mad and empty handed. I will not go back.
In what kind of establishment do the employees not know the inventory? Or bother to check for a customer asking… bad business.

Ice cream
cookies
and
rock & roll
Emack & Bolio’s was started in 1975 by a guy named Robert Rook. A hippie sort of fellow, he had the rather odd notion of combining ice cream with rock and roll. As strange as it seems the idea worked and now there are several of the stores in Boston and they have even spread to several other states.
The place is pretty cool, lots of different flavors of ice cream and fro yo as well as cookies, brownies and other unhealthy but tasty things.
Some scruffy people hang out here but that’s all right, they were friendly and nice. I really enjoyed seeing all the photos of different rock musicians that have visited this place hanging on the walls. The big fake cow in the front was also pretty cool.
It’s not the cheapest place in Boston to get ice cream but it certainly is tasty. I like pretty much all ice cream so I can’t really tell the difference but this place definitely has a unique feel to it. A cool place that dances to it’s own drummer.

I enjoyed the coffee flavored ice cream we had here, but it’s nothing special. I’ve better & worse. The interior of the building was memorable (the cow), the product not so much.

We love this place. We were so excited to see a location along the end of the Freedom Trail walk. My husband and I have been going to the UWS NYC location for years and love it! It was good to try it in the original town of Boston.
Yes it’s more expensive. So what? It’s specialty ice cream. It’s the same as any other specialty ice cream place.
The flavors are cool. Every location has a different selection. Here I had the bananas foster. It tasted like fresh bananas (not that fake crap banana flavor). It was good.
My husband had a soft serve chocolate with a mix-​in of oreoes. It was all blended together and smooth and creamy.
The cones with stuff on them rock (you can get rice krispy, fruity pebbles, chocolate, etc).
I liked reading the little history they had along the counter.

Are you kidding me? This is Boston’s best ice cream? I’m not sure I will ever find out. We’ve been standing in line for over 20 minutes. Is the line long, you ask? Um, there’s about 5 people ahead of us. This is a ridiculous amount of time to make a simple ice cream cone. Perhaps I’ll return when I have a couple hours to kill.
There’s a zillion places to get ice cream in Boston. None are worth waiting in line for 20 minutes. It’s ice cream, not haute cuisine.

It was my third or fourth time there. I don’t know what some people complain about but this place never disappointed me. Their smoothie is very, very good and they use sparkling water to make it — it’s sooo delicious. We got two chocolate bars — one with peanuts and caramel and the other one with dry cherries and caramel. Chocolate is usually sweet but it wasn’t very sweet — I thought it was delicious!
If you are in the area I recommend Emack & Bolio’s :) go try it out and you ll keep going back!!!

A review from a tourist who has never been in an Emack & Bolio’s. I thought the ice cream was good. I had a grasshopper with Oreo and it was quite tasty. Husband had a hazelnut ice cream atop a homemade chocolate dipped waffle cone, and he was like a kid in a. er. well, ice cream store, eating it all up.
Granted we were on our way back from walking the Freedom Trail. We were tired. It was a bright, sunny day. Ice cream just sounded good.
The store itself was brightly colored and festive. However, I dripped some ice cream on the counter and I couldn’t find a napkin anywhere.
I would go back if I lived in Boston. However, I wouldn’t make a special trip or anything.

I’m giving this dump 1 star because I can’t give it 0 stars… I absolutely hate this place and I rue the day it opened in Charlestown. If you’re reading this and wondering if you should stop in, save your money… Go grab a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, flush your money down the toilet or give a 5-​spot to the homeless… Any of those options are better than patronizing this shthole… The ice cream is below average, they are price gougers, the portions are laughable, the whipped cream looks like old milk (I dare you to prove me wrong), the employees are (for the most part) degenerate asholes, and the only reason this place stays in business is because there is no freaking competition in a 1 mile radius… I hope someone rolls a live grenade into this place… The end.

Only one size soft serve and it’s $ 5.40? Combined with the surly service, I’ll take my business elsewhere. Anywhere else.

I never went to the Coldstone Creamery that was here beforehand, as «ignorance is bliss» for me as it relates to ice cream. Anyways, after dinner out in the North End and walking home, I somehow ended up walking in here. Probably should have gotten one scoop, but there were so many interesting choices, I upsized to two. Maple Blondie and Cake Batter. All I can say is WOW. Really good ice cream. Not as good as the farm in my hometown, but for somewhat mass produced ice cream, I give it a solid for stars. Worth a visit, and I need to practice some control when walking by this place in the future.