On hot summer days, vacationers traveling in Colorado like to cool off with a scoop or two of ice cream. Skip the chains. Instead, head for the mom-and-pop shops where history and imagination often make a delicious combination.
Charlie’s General Store
214 Main St., La Veta; 719-742-3651
Order at the old-fashioned lunch counter, where chocolate and vanilla perennially are popular, but you’ll also find the traditional favorites, including cotton candy, wedding cake and white chocolate caramel cluster.
Colorado City Creamery
2602 W. Colorado Ave., Colorado Springs; 719-634-1411
This tiny building with the Hansel-and-Gretel gable served as a gasoline station in the 1930s. Now it celebrates three decades of filling people with ice cream. The Creamery makes more than 100 gallons of handmade ice cream a day. Customers linger on the leafy, brick-paved patio that hosts the occasional wedding reception. Custom flavors include root beer, sweet cream, Blue Moon (which tastes like Fruit Loops cereal), and coconut-, chocolate- and caramel-laced Pikes Peak Trail.
Fortune Club
300 Victor Ave., Victor; 719-689-2623
Hop onto one of the twirling stools at this lunch counter that has served customers (on and off) since the 1940s. Order the local favorite, Butterfinger Blast, or a chocolate marshmallow malt. Burgers and breakfast served too.
Ouray Candy Co.
480 Main St., Ouray; 970-325-4077
This shop is housed in Ouray’s oldest commercial building on the southbound route over the Million Dollar Highway to Silverton. A local favorite is Moose Tracks: vanilla studded with chocolate and peanut butter.
The Rock House
24 S. Colorado 105, Palmer Lake; 719-488-6917
This former truck stop once served beer and barbecue on the old highway between Denver and Colorado Springs. Today, kids lick cones at picnic tables on the patio, watching for the trains that roar by every hour. Inside, a miniature train loops around a track suspended from the ceiling.
San Juan Soda Co.
227 Silver St., Lake City; 970-944-0500, sanjuansoda
In this Texas tourist stronghold, 40 flavors are served from the hand-carved soda fountain that dates back to the 1890s. Take your cone outside to a park bench on the boardwalk or go across the street to the town park.
Rocky Mountain Canary General Store
246 Bennett Ave., Cripple Creek; 719-689-2496
Named for the dulcet-voiced burros that still wander the streets, the General Store dates to the 1970s. Order one of the handmade waffle cones and watch the crowd of gamblers and day trippers drawn to this historic gold-rush town. Not into sweets? A big wooden barrel offers dill pickles awash in brine.
Walrus Ice Cream
125 W. Mountain Ave., Fort Collins; 970 482-5919,
In a nod to this sometimes-rowdy college town, the Walrus specializes in alcohol-infused ice creams: Bailey’s Irish Cream, Car Bomb (Jameson Irish whiskey, Guinness stout and Bailey’s Irish Cream), bourbon vanilla Oreo, margarita, strawberry daiquiri, and the best seller, Jack Daniel’s chocolate chip.
