Emma’s Lake Placid Creamery
2507 Main StreetWhat’s a vacation without ice cream….right?
It’s kind of a nightly occurrence in a resort town Lake Placid.
We were in town for the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships at The Olympic Center. We’re calling this “our vacation” this year because it was a family trip to a town that most people would vacation in. Yeah, we spent a lot of time at the rink but we also had a little bit of relaxing time outside of the historic venue.
The first kid to compete was B on Monday night. He only had the first half of his event. The second part of it was the next morning. Once he was done and changed, he wanted to go get something to eat then get back to watch some friends in the event that was happening after his.
He and I left The Olympic Center and started walking north to find someplace we could quickly grab a burger. There is a spot just a few blocks away but they were putting up the closing sign as we walked up…at 7 PM….in a resort town with literally hundreds of people walking the streets at night.
He didn’t want pizza again and any other place would have required us to sit down for a meal. He also wasn’t interested in that. He asked if he could just have ice cream for dinner. I figured what the hell. It is vacation, right?
We headed over to Emma’s Lake Placid Creamery on Main Street and Grace Way in downtown Lake Placid. This ice cream shop is absolutely the place to be on a summer night in downtown Lake Placid. It’s a retro 1950’s style ice cream shop that quite regularly has lines down the street waiting to get in. When we got there around 7:30 PM on Monday night, the line was two storefronts down Main Street but it moves pretty quickly so we got in line.
I’m just going to be upfront about this, this place is like a personal hell for me. That’s not a knock on the shop. It’s just a really, really small space with a lot of people and being a bigger guy, it makes me really uncomfortable as I try very hard not to take up anyone else’s personal space. It’s a me problem.
The shop is very tight with the ice cream counter on one side and, like Soulshine Bagel, just enough space for a line to squeeze up against the wall and loop back around to the order counter on the other side. There was actually a display of coffee mugs for sale on the wall and I was terrified either I or B was going to back in to it. I just kind of held on to his shoulders and pointed him in the right direction.
Right as you made the loop to turn around in the back of the store is the hard pack ice cream case. But you don’t order here like you would in most ice cream shops. A group of girls in front of us didn’t know this and they created a gap in the line and eventually got yelled at by the person taking orders next to the cash register.
There’s a cooler along the way to the order counter with a number of home made ice cream sandwiches. I should have grabbed on these. They looked delicious and I have a real soft spot for cookies and ice cream. It was a mistake on my part for not grabbing one.
There is a large menu of ice cream creations hanging on the wall behind the counter. There are some really good and unique things to choose from but I was so overwhelmed by the crush of people, I didn’t want anything…especially anything that was going to take longer to make. Once you actually ordered and paid for you ice cream, you still had to stand in the crush of people past the register waiting for your name to be called. They did it like most ice cream places where they call it out as they get it done so B getting a scoop of ice cream would be called out before me getting a sundae or a milkshake. I just passed this time. Had I been there during the off peak times, there is a lot that I would have liked to have tried.
On this trip, B just ordered a single scoop of Cotton Candy ice cream. The single scoop was actually a reasonable size and a size that was really easy to eat as we were walking back to The Olympic Center. A lot of times, you get these pretty massive scoops that B really struggles to eat without making a huge mess. This one was completely contained to a small cup and made it much, much easier to eat.
My kids went to Emma’s Lake Placid Creamery multiple times on our five day visit to the village. It’s what you do in Lake Placid. It’s what you do on a vacation. We let L hang out with her friends at night and they just kind of walked around downtown. It’s something a lot of groups of teenagers were doing. Several nights they waited in line at Emma’s and it’s one of the things both kids really enjoyed about the trip. Emma’s Lake Placid Creamery is one of those things kids will always remember about family vacations and look back on nostalgically when they get older. Being in the store with the crush of people is not my cup of tea but it’s something I did because I knew the kids will remember this place as being something special on our travels.
SW Michigan Dining 