It’s Memorial Day weekend, the official kickoff to summer, and what better time to remember the respite so easily found at UConn Dairy Bar, situated next to the beautiful Horsebarn Hill.
The Dairy Bar, which offers about the most perfect homemade ice cream experience in the state, sanctioned by Connecticut's flagship university, can cure so many ills. It is that reward you promise yourself for cleaning out the most forgotten closet, a quick change of scenery for the cranky dependent of any age, a fun getaway for a chat with a cherry on top.
Friendly UConn students will give you sample tastes of coffee espresso crunch, cake batter or cinnamon flavors. Heck, they wouldn’t bat an eye if you wanted to try the chocolate. They’re fun and fast to scoop and get you on your way, if that’s what you’re looking for.
They’re using some coffee in their concoctions nowadays. Try a MOO-Latta, 1 cup of coffee blended with two scoops of any flavor with whipped cream and chocolate syrup. Or get the mint mocha milkshake; the mint gives it a welcome lightness. Take home a half gallon of your favorite flavor for $6 or even some fresh eggs from the cooler.
This is not a total student hangout. Student manager Maria McCool, a senior in Human Development and Family Studies, says less than 40 percent of the Dairy Bar’s business is from students.
The staff are not all College of Agriculture students either, but they do love to check back in the plant when ice cream is being made.
“The other day we got to milk the cows, just to find out what it was about,” Stephanie Elliott, a junior in Allied Health, yes, in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. “Our boss said, ‘We’re really going to milk them. This is not a joke.’”
Don’t forget to bring your cash. The only other mode of payment they take is UConn Husky Bucks. They’re trying to get a credit card machine, but so far cash-only has served them well.
And, this just in, the June-August hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. What’s not to like?
For information, visit dairybar.uconn.edu or call 860-486-2634 or 860-486-1021. You can even see ice cream being made (call ahead for schedules) and, of course, the animals are around, too.
