Bobbie’s Dairy Dip
5301 Charlotte AvenueOne more night in Nashville.
Our competition ended around 6:30 Saturday night at the Centennial Sportsplex. It was too late to start driving home so we headed back to the hotel for the night. One of our teammates had one final skate at 8 AM Sunday morning so the plan was to get up, watch her, then start the drive back to Kalamazoo.
There was one of our other teammates who couldn’t get to town very early on Thursday. She’s in high school and had something going on that she couldn’t miss. They started the drive Thursday night, got a little over halfway, then finished the drive Friday morning. She wasn’t able to join us for dinner at Miranda Lambert’s Casa Rosa and her mom didn’t make the trip last year. They wanted to go back down to Broadway for dinner Saturday night.
The problem with that is a lot of places go 21+ pretty early on Friday and Saturday night. J was also pretty tired and I didn’t really want to spend another $125 on dinner.
L wanted to go with them though (spoiler alert, they ended up at Casa Rosa again because it was the only place they could find that was still allowing under 18.). I told her I’d take her to her friend’s hotel so she could go then I’d come pick her up when they were done.
B wanted ice cream for dinner. He had a pretty tough weekend and handled it well so we said, sure, why not? He came with me to drop L off then we were off to find ice cream.
I really didn’t even know where to start. We had been passing a place near our hotel that had huge lines every night. The line wasn’t as big as we drove to the other hotel so I asked if that would work for him.
Bobbie’s Dairy Dip is a Nashville classic. It’s on Charlotte Avenue at 53rd Avenue right across the street from the Hattie B’s Hot Chicken I had eaten at earlier in the day. The walk up ice cream stand has been there since the early 1950’s. It was originally Harper’s Dairy Dip but it was changed to Bobbie’s in the 1980’s when a new owner, named Bobbie, bought the stand. Parking is a little though as there isn’t much for the actual restaurant. Hattie B’s lot is across the street and I did see some people parking over there but I was hesitant to do that. There was a little bit of street parking next to the Hattie B’s lot. I didn’t see any signs saying I couldn’t park there so I did.
It was starting to rain so the crowd was really light on this Saturday night. I was looking at the menu on the window when an order window suddenly popped open and a woman asked what we wanted. B kept asking what kind of ice cream they had thinking it was dipped ice cream. I told him it was soft serve like Dairy Queen and the choices were vanilla, chocolate, or swirl. He picked swirl in a dish. It’s a bummer because they’re known for their vanilla ice cream cone dipped in chocolate and covered with sprinkles but I can’t trust him to eat a cone so dish it was. I ordered Elmer Fudge milkshake. The cost was right around $15.
There is a little covered area off to the side of the building with a couple of picnic tables. That’s where everyone was waiting. There’s a speaker system where they call out your name when your ice cream is ready. The don’t wait for everything to be ready at the same time so B got his ice cream before I got mine.
They really piled up the twisted ice cream in to that dish. It was a good six inches above the top of the bowl B just kind of looked at it and asked, “how am I supposed to eat that without knocking it over?” I had him sit down at a table while we waited for my shake and start it on it. This boy likes his ice cream and even he was only able to eat about half of the dish. J had a few bites once we got back to the hotel but the rest of it melted before anyone had an empty enough stomach to finish.
The Elmer Fudge shake is pretty simple shake made with hot fudge and chocolate sauce. It’s all blended together so it really just looks like a chocolate shake but it is really, really chocolaty. I stuck a straw in it but that wasn’t going to do much. This is a really thick shake so I pretty much just sipped it out of the cup leaving a delicious chocolate mustache on my upper lip until I conquered it.
Bobbie’s Dairy Dip is that classic summertime ice cream stand that every neighborhood should have. They do food as well but I was still pretty stuffed from my late lunch next door.
This was a great way to close out our trip to Nashville this year. I was bummed I didn’t get to go last year but happy our coaches wanted to go back this year. Here’s hoping we pick this competition again next year because we had a really fun three days in Tennessee.
Now, for a three day break back home in Kalamazoo before doing it all over again in Chicago.
SW Michigan Dining 