The Demise of Dyke Ice Cream

With all that's been going on lately, I almost forgot to blog about one of the great sorrows that the summer of 2003 will be remembered for.

There is no more Dyke Ice Cream.

I know, I know, it's almost too shocking to be true. But the weekend before last, Sean and I set out to get some of the YUMMIEST ice cream you'll ever taste at Davis Square's beloved Dyke Ice Cream joint (or, "Denise's", for the more politcally-correct set...), only to find out that it had been bought by J.P. Licks. Now, I recognize that J.P. Licks is a small local chain, and not a big corporate conglomerate like Baskin-Robbins or something, but I was still nothing if not livid. Especially when I saw that all of my very favorite flavors had been erased from the board (No more White Gold--white chocolate ice cream with cinnamon butterscotch and caramel swirl and white chocolate chunks!!! No more pumpkin! No more coconut almond chocolate chunk!!!)

Worst of all were the employees. Gone were the diesel dykes clad in wife-beaters and baggy shorts who scooped ice cream while listening to Indigo Girls. They had been replaced by a scattering of impossibly perky, uniform-wearing girly-girls with pink lipstick.

And the ice cream isn't nearly as good. A huge disappointment.

So, from now on, when Sean and I go in search of homemade ice cream treats, it'll be Toscanini's we seek. There's a couple in Cambridge, and both Diesel and Someday Cafe in Davis Square sell their stuff. And it's as good, if not better, than old-school Denise's. Burnt caramel, cake batter, german chocolate. Good stuff, folks.

But I'll miss my surly dykes.