Stewart’s Shops

First and second times in one ever while in the Albany area visiting the in laws. Wish there was one in (or more) in Buffalo NY. Wonderful ice cream and local chain products that rival the big brands except in price. I recommend the loopty loop ice cream!

The 4 is for Stewart’s in general because they’re in places in the hill towns and in the country where there’s nothing else and you can’t drive 45 minutes into Albany. I’ll write this review here because Daniel B wrote his here.
Tip #1: The plain chocolate is so good because it has BUTTER in it !!! Check out the ingredients list.
Tip #2: The super rich Philly Vanilla in the small Haagen Dazs like container is just as good as Haagen Dazs but cheaper and it also has BUTTER in it!!! Yum. It also has vanilla and vanilla bean.
Look for the ice creams with BUTTER in the ingredients list :-)

Typical convenience store. Gets an extra star because the service was very friendly and they sell peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Might be a local thing, but in all my travels I have never seen it before.
Store is clean and has a pretty good variety of stuff.

The problem I have with this particular Stewards is the staff. The staff is poorly managed so of course the store is also poorly managed by the staff that is poorly managed. I never feel welcomed in their. I am just another number, another customer, another sale. I am not sure what I am expecting, but maybe at least a smile?
Also the food their rates pretty bad. I bought a hotdog their yesterday and they had no meat sauce left in the container. Which meant that the sauce that was stuck on the bottom was hard and flavorless. When asked if they could replace it I was met with a simple no. They werent mean about it, but they werent nice either.

This is a Stewart’s. There are many others like it. But this one is mine.
Probably this is a 2* Stewart’s. It’s small and cramped and dingy. On the plus side they still have a hot dog steamer vs. the newfangled rollers that have been appearing around the region. More than anything else, I appreciate how they have a rack that holds your «milk club» card by the milk cooler so you don’t have to have yet another thing taking up space in your wallet. Other Stewart’s may be newer, cleaner or larger. Some might even have gas. But this is the one where I keep my milk club card, which means it gets the extra star.
So on those evenings after dinner when I discover that there is no milk left for the kids cereal in the mornings, I come here. And maybe I’ll pick up some eggs too if we’re low. Yeah, ice cream too.
I’m ashamed to admit it, but after five years living in the Capital Region I’ve found some of the ice cream flavors to be magnificent even though they are filled with gums and other nasty ingredients like carrageenan.
You can pry the half-​gallon of maple-​walnut from my cold dead hands.