The Brickyard

Shop Name: The Brickyard

Location: N. Prince Street

Boo's Rating: 1 Scream

I want to be very clear that the Brickyard is NOT an ice cream shop. It is a sports bar and restaurant that happens to have ice cream on its menu. Their menu boasts an "ice cream du jour" which is whatever the chef feels like making that day. My meal prior to dessert had been pretty much terrible, but I want to be clear that the meal is not what was judged in determining the number of "screams." I ordered the crab-stuffed flounder. The waitress had recommended it pretty highly and I'm not gonna lie, it sounded delicious. The flounder came with a mango salsa on top of it with sides of rice, green beans and salad. I was really looking forward to this meal, but something went wrong in the kitchen and they turned my flounder into fish jerky. Seriously. It was awful and completely inedible. The sides were good, but not good enough for me to not send the dish back to the kitchen. I was still hungry, so I decided to order dessert and that's when I saw the "ice cream du jour" on the menu. Without even asking the flavor, I said, "I'll take it." When it came, it looked fabulous. The waitress informed me that the flavor of the day was Kahlua-strawberry-cheesecake. Doesn't that sound AMAZING? It was SO not. I know I'm always saying that busy ice cream needs to be sufficiently busy. Well, the Brickyard took that philosophy WAY too far. There was hardly any ice cream in the ice cream. It was ALL strawberries and the occassional chunk of bland cheesecake. Aside from the main problem of actually being just a bowl of strawberries, the Brickyard had another issue. They didn't chop the strawberries very small, so when mixed into the "ice cream" (I put it in quotes because I think they're abusing the term), the strawberries just ended up frozen solid. Eating one was like biting into an ice cube. Not good. And as for the kahlua? The flavor was non-existent.

I think I'm actually be generous by giving them any screams at all. The reason they get a scream is because I'm assuming their plain vanilla and chocolate ice creams are good enough to earn at least that. Also, since I sampled the ice cream du jour, it's fair to say that it might never be on the menu again. (We can hope, at least.) However, after the fish jerky and frozen berries experience, you'd have to pay me to go back to the Brickyard.