Cold Stone Creamery

How I heard of this place: I think I first heard of Cold Stone when I had a coupon in the Entertainment book years ago. When I arrived and saw the newness of creating your own ice cream concoctions, I was hooked!
Type of cuisine: Gourmet ice cream, shakes and cakes.
Ambiance: Dark interior with a walk-​up order counter and limited seating. Perfect for the family or a a sweet snack with friends.
What I ordered: On this trip, my dining companion and I ordered a combination Love It! size ($ 5.50) of cake batter and dark chocolate ice cream. In the mix we selected Butterfinger chunks, crushed graham crackers and M’n’Ms (though we realized that brownies would have been a better option upon sampling).
What I loved: I love that the establishment has introduced dark chocolate ice cream, rich and creamy, not too sweet. The cake batter ice cream is always a new favorite — of both myself and my dining companion.
Why I loved it: It’s quick, easy and you can order off of signature combinations or create your own!
Cost: Average ($ 5 for a large portion of ice cream, big enough to share!)

The icecream is awesome but the service is so sub-​par. The people behind the desk are always in the back talking and ignoring customers and today when we went the hours said 12 – 9, but they weren’t even open and it was 2! This place makes me so mad.

Amazing service! One of the best cold stone I have been.

I’ve always had a good experience here. Yes, their ice cream is less high quality than a place like Bluebird or Molly Moons, but the important thing here is mix-​ins. Your ice cream is your own! and its cheaper than most other «nice» places. It’s almost too hard to decide what you want!
My favorites:
sweet cream ice cream
cake batter ice cream
brownies, sprinkles, caramel
and if your feeling ambitious, a waffle cup

I used to love going to Cold Stone because they have so many options, but recently I became vegan. I looked online to see if they had non-​dairy options, and the website promises dairy-​free options. When I went into the Fremont location, they had lemon and watermelon sorbet as their dairy-​free options. So … a place that prides themselves on creative sundaes and mix-​ins only has lemon and watermelon sorbet for people who don’t eat dairy??? I’m super disappointed.

Looks like I got there on a good night. When my friends and I went on Monday, we had an excellent time. The ladies were helpful and polite and the ice cream was delicious! I’d never been to a Coldstone before and they helped me create my own masterpiece. My friends and I, there were three of us, all enjoyed our to-​go confections and shared them amongst each other. They were all delicious.
I had Chocolate with Cheesecake and Chocolate Cake mix. Delicious!

Disappointment, your name is Cold Stone.
We stopped by on one of the first sunny days of spring, after receiving a gift card from a well-​meaning relative. Ice cream sounded like just the ticket, and we were anticipating great things. My previous knowledge of cold stone was only that it was named dropped in the scathing trustafarian satire, «Ras Trent.»
My companion chose a mint-​chocolate concoction and I went with sweet cream, strawberries, caramel and coconut. I was first concerned when I noticed the girl adding just two frozen strawberries to the mess, as the photos behind the counter suggested I would receive a heaping pile.
I was more concerned when my companion and I sat down with our ice cream and the first bite was just meh. All I could taste was sugar, none of the flavors. My friend said that though his ice cream was mint, there was no mint to taste. We ate our ice cream in quiet sadness… that is until halfway through, when I uncovered a well-​folded in white blond hair, the same hair color as the woman behind the counter.
Sooooo.I was done.
We tossed our half eaten ice cream and went to the grocery store, on the way in the store I tried to give the gift card with the remaining balance to a homeless dude and he turned it down.

Coffee Lovers Only!!! And Oreo Overload!!!

I went to their website and ordered a birthday cake. It was very simple to pick up my item. It looks exactly as I had hoped and I am very pleased with the overall service and experience.
I will definitely be getting another cake/​pie here again!

Got to have it Cookie Dougnt you want some add reeses amazing!

We bought a Groupon (or Living Social coupon) for Cold Stone Creamery. People seem to love this place, we like ice cream, so it seemed like a good fit.
I was astonished at how terrible it was. I like ice cream for itself: even a good vanilla ice cream should be worth eating all on its lonesome. My partner got some sort of concoction with all kinds of stuff thrown in. I got a simple scoop of chocolate. It was terrible. Virtually tasteless. Except I could taste all kinds of chemicals. WTF? Seriously: this was the worst ice cream I had ever had. After two bites i threw the rest away. Life is too short to fill one’s body with empty, bad-​tasting calories. I tasted my partner’s ice cream thing. It was better, but only because there were a dozen other things thrown in there. What is clear to me is that Cold Stone Creamery spends the absolute minimum on their actual ice cream and depend on all the additions to make it palatable. This, in a nutshell, is a depiction of why Americans are so grossly obese. We choose quantity over quality. This was nothing but a vast (and expensive) expanse of empty, worthless calories. Never again.

I don’t know how I feel about this cold stone, it isn’t as good as the other cold stone that I usually go too. I got the founder’s favorite in a sprinkled chocolate covered waffle bowl. I saw that the girl poured waay too much chocolate syrup into my founder’s favorite that it wasn’t that good and too chocolately. I love the sweet cream flavor and I could barely taste it. The bf got the cheese cake fantasy and he claimed that it didn’t taste like it usually does. I don’t know whether or not it was the person that made the ice cream or that the ice cream flavors have changed. We paid 13 bucks for the two of us in a love it size which is a rip off. Good thing I had a groupon. Next time we will go to a better ice cream establishment like Molly Moons or Full Tilt.
Ps. Never get the waffle cone, it is not fresh and tastes old.

Not a good experience. No kindness and no tasty treat. Total Bummer.
Watermelon Sorbet: Combination of Tab, sacharine, and tinfoil. It is way too sweet for an adult to eat. As my credit card was being run, I had my first bite. The staff person told me I could not have a replacement. I handed the sorbet back to her as she gave me my receipt. I paid $ 13 for two people for ice cream. I simply had nothing. No do-​overs here. Zero concern for customer satisfaction.

I like that you can create your own «creation». But I recommend sticking with the sorbets over the regular ice cream. My suggestions are watermelon sorbet and strawberries. Love the mix-in’s!
Great location though, although sometimes parking can be tough. And the staff are super friendly & helpful =)

I reluctantly entered this scary establishment after dining at Blue C with a friend who was preggers and craving dessert (She gets a pass for that). This place is a glutton for obesity, with a palette reserved for a 9 year old.
First off, the ice cream is nasty so you’re guaranteed a nasty concoction anyway. The taste is equivalent to the cheap, artificial flavored, almost foamy, bucket style «ice cream» found at the end of the frozen food aisle.
To cover up that aspect, a wide inventory of candy bars can be slammed in to boost the calorie count even more. It’s an odd location for Cold Stone to inhabit… I’m hoping the hippies will unite and boot them out to replace it with Molly Moon’s or Fainting Goat Gelato. That would be sweet.

I’ve just never really been a fan of Coldstone. The prices are too high, the portions are FAR too big, and the ice cream is just… ice cream.
I can’t believe how gigantic a ‘Like It’ size is. Far too big for someone like me. Next time I’ll have to order a kid size — if they’ll let me. And if there is a next time.
$ 5 bucks for an ice cream is far too much. I don’t even know how much the prices are for the larger sizes — I probably don’t WANT to know!
This Coldstone location was okay, but definitely not great. There was no line when we got there, but the staff didn’t seem particularly pleased to be working, to say the least. While one girl was making my ice cream, another girl ran me up at the register. When finished, the first girl walked up, said «Here’s this,» and plopped my ice cream down on the counter while I was paying. Lovely.

I know others sort of hate on Cold Stone, but I actually really enjoy it. I love having tons of crap piled into my ice cream and mushed around to a frosting consistency. It’s so wrong and decadent you would think you were in ancient Rome.
Staff has always been nice and I tend to chose days when people don’t want ice cream. You know, cold winter days in the rain. That way I don’t have a line to deal with. But on occasions when the sun is shining, waiting is not a problem.
I do wish they had better seating inside, but a walk to the water is always nice.

I’m not a big dessert person, but if I were to die by gluttony, this would be a good way to go. I only eat ice cream a few times a year, and when I do, it’s usually Cold Stone. A couple years ago I served a Cold Stone cake, the Coffee House Crunch (coffee ice cream, devil’s food cake, Heath bar, and chocolate ganache), at my bday party and it was a BIG hit. Cakes can be ordered in a variety of sizes, to serve as many as 50 and a «Petite» made to serve 2. I am not a fan of the gravel-​like crap in DQ ice cream cakes, so Cold Stone won me over right away. Recently I also discovered they make ice cream cupcakes, pretty much mini versions of the cakes. I think they come individually or in packs of 6. A few days ago, after a long walk in the sun, a friend and I treated ourselves to some regular ice cream. We each made our own concoctions (Custom Creations, as opposed to the Signature Creations) and enjoyed them immensely.
Service is about as much as you can expect from a bored, underpaid teenager. Though they guy at the downtown location on Sunday was much more enthusiastic. He was actually referring to the sizes in the «Like It», «Love It», etc lingo. It was kinda funny, but poor guy.

It’s been speculated that I’ve put some weight back on since I’ve been reviewing so many eateries lately. The batteries in my scale is dead, so I don’t know for sure, but I’m in no rush to replace them… especially after eating here last night– even though I only ordered a small and split that.
Why does the stone need to be cold? Who cares?
Bottom line– good.
So good in fact, you can physically feel the sugar dissolving on your tongue, rushing through your bloodstream and firing up the pistons in your brain.
Then, about an hour later, the sugar crash come down as the ice cream, cookie dough and whipped cream reforms into a solid state of fat on your stomach.

I worked here a couple summers ago. Just FYI, if you see someone on a busy day who is working alone, likely they’re working alone all day for minimum wage with no breaks. (legally everyone gets at least a 10 minute lunch break… but if you have a line, are really going to tell everyone to sit tight while you munch on your burrito? I doubt it.) Biking there everyday and then not eating for 7 or 8 hours… man, I never expected to lose so much weight working at an ice cream store.
At first I wasn’t even allowed free or discount ice cream and when the place changed hands half way through the summer and the new boss agreed that policy was BS, I didn’t even want the ice cream.
With a lot of searching, you can find the ingredient list on the Cold Stone website.
Eggs? No.
Partially hydrogenated soybean oil, propylene glycol
monoester, and aluminum sulfate? You betcha!
Why not just go to the PCC next door and buy a pint of ice cream with normal ingredients for the same cost as a «Love it» size Cold Stone cone?