When you want to get ice cream with your friends, do so without agreeing to write an article about it together.
Otherwise, you’ll be too tempted to make the whole piece about the antics that happened along the way, and not the ice cream at all.
We pulled into The Udder Side around 8:45 on a Monday night. It was 15 minutes before close, and was still as busy as we’d ever seen it. We ordered the Dirty Pitchfork, which included peanut butter cups, whipped cream, hot fudge, and Hillsdale County’s finest chocolate soft-serve. The portion size was generous, and the peanut butter perfectly complemented the chocolate. The triple-parfait style made it easy to enjoy the toppings throughout the entire cup.
Sophomore Jillian Parks ordered a marshmallow milkshake. She loved the fluffy sweetness of her dessert, though both authors concluded it tasted like pure sugar, and consequently made fun of her. The Udder Side was our favorite dessert of the three we ate because our ice cream mixture was the most packed with good, chocolatey treats, and the hot fudge was particularly high quality.
But, The Udder Side has something more than quality ice cream to offer its customers — a cherry on top, if you will. Once we pulled into our parking spot to dig in, we could hear the crowds of freshmen and families outside. Under the glow of the street lights and fluorescent signage, there were people just like us making an outing of grabbing ice cream.
It’s open late, and it’s got the space to truly host its customers. This, even more than the ice cream itself, is what makes The Udder Side a consistent favorite among students and Hillsdalians alike.
Later, at Coney’s and Swirls in downtown Hillsdale, we ordered the delicious Mad Chocolate Cyclone. It consisted of a mixture of soft-serve, delectable hot fudge, and a perfect quantity of oreos. The menu promised brownies would be included, though we could not taste them.
Parks ordered a vanilla soft-serve dipped in cotton-candy flavored syrup, which she enjoyed until unexpectedly throwing most of her cone on the pavement. It had become “too vanilla,” and she couldn’t eat anymore. Even though Parks didn’t enjoy her treat in its entirety, the bulldog we met in line certainly might have.
Coney’s and Swirls closes at 8 on weeknights, forcing us to continue our ice cream expedition two nights in a row. Although, this ended up being worth it. The ice cream was good, the atmosphere was light, and its once-inconvenient closing policies allowed us to enjoy an intensely beautiful sunset.
At Vanity, which, despite recently being renamed Overflowing Cups and Cones, is still listed as “Vanity” on Google, we enjoyed a Dirt Sundae, a mixture of chocolate soft-serve, frozen gummy worms, and a light dusting of crumbled oreos. The ice cream was fine—too many gummy worms for our liking—but the service and location were unparalleled.
The ice cream boy gave Parks a Dog Sundae, vanilla soft-serve topped with a pungent dog bone, free of charge. He had heard us joking about Parks being our dog, and joined in on the fun of denying her humanity. It was an admittedly weird gesture, but was hilarious nonetheless and colored the rest of our trip to town.
Overflowing Cups and Cones, like Vanity which came before it, is located in the far right bay of an old car wash. Twinkle lights hung down from the otherwise bare aluminum ceiling and tapped on the car roof as we drove in. Its location doesn’t provide the same cool-cats-at-the-malt-joint energy that The Udder Side does, but it is a truly unique spot.
We would have loved to say something about Milkster, but it was closed both times we tried to go. Moreover, we learned later that we didn’t go to the right Biggby Coffee which houses Milkster. So, if you end up in the Jonesville Biggby, let us know how their ice cream is.
