Author: Susan Sorensen

I scream, you scream … okay, you know where this is going. Lucky for us, we don’t have to scream very loud (or at all!) to find a frozen treat in this town. Here are 11 of our favorite hot cold spots.—SS

Ben & Jerry’s

Barracks Road Shopping Center

They had us at Cherry Garcia. 

Chaps Ice Cream

Downtown Mall and UVA Corner

A trip to the Downtown Mall isn’t complete without a scoop of coffee raspberry in a waffle cone from Brenda “Granny” Hawkins. (A second Chaps recently opened on the UVA Corner.)  

Cold Stone Creamery

1709 Emmet St. N & 5th Street Station

Just-made ice cream is thwapped on a frozen granite stone (hence, the shop’s name), where a variety of mix-ins (fruit, nuts, candy) can be added. Sounds Berry, Berry Good to us.

Dairy Queen

1777 Fortune Park Rd.

Five words: Chocolate chip cookie dough Blizzard. 

Kilwins

Downtown Mall

It’s tough to resist a cup of Blue Moon ice cream with a side of just-made sea-salt caramel fudge. 

Kohr Brothers Frozen Custard

1881 Seminole Trail

Less fat and sugar than ice cream, a light, silky texture, several twist flavors (vanilla and orange sherbert, please), and a merry-go-round.

La Flor Michoacana

601A Cherry Ave.

We once likened leaning over the shop’s store-length cooler filled with an array of brightly colored popsicles to gazing at the treasures in a jewelry store’s glass counter—but Rum and Raisins on a stick is much tastier than a diamond ring.  

Moo Thru

Dairy Market

Schlepping an hour north to the red barn on James Madison Highway became history in 2021, when more than a dozen flavors that change with the seasons (come to mama, Blackberry Merlot!) arrived on Grady Avenue. 

Splendora’s Gelato

The Shops at Stonefield

Trays of ever-changing, custom-crafted gelato flavors (check out the store’s Instagram and Facebook pages for the week’s offerings) and vegan chocolate and vanilla cupcakes. We’ll take some (okay, a lot) of each.

SugarBear Gourmet Ice Cream

1522 High St.

Emily Harpster’s made-from-scratch, locally sourced flavors (Wild Woman Whiskey, Vanilla Plum Blackberry, Mayan Hot Chocolate), once available only at specialty stores and bakeries, got a brick-and-mortar location this year. 

Timberlake’s

Downtown Mall

Step back in time at this back-of-the-drugstore soda fountain, where the dessert menu includes ice cream floats and sodas; shakes, malts, and sundaes (how’s about a Hannah Banana Split?); or a double dip in a cup or cone.

Every August, the grounds of James Monroe’s Highland come alive with young farmers leading their cows, pigs, goats, and chickens around a ring, in hopes of wowing a panel of judges. But the popular livestock demonstrations aren’t the only place to shine at the Albemarle County Fair. New this year: a giant sunflower competition and a country-themed pageant, where girls from newborns to age 12, clad in either their Sunday best or something they’d wear around the farm, earn sashes for their efforts. And as always, the fair includes a variety of fiercely fought agriculture competitions, everything from pumpkins, figs, and okra to honey, hay, and Mr. and Mrs. Potato and Veggie Heads, as well as awards for best pies, cakes, jams, pickles, jerky, and dozens of others. Visitors will also find plenty of food trucks, live music, historical demonstrations, art and craft exhibits, and more. Bonus: Admission is still only $5, and children under 6 get in for free.

The Charlottesville Blues Football Club, part of the United Soccer League (the largest soccer organization in North America), kicked off its first season in May. The team, whose home field is at St. Anne’s-Belfield School, is going to “build a fan base one fan at a time,” according to Brian Krow, the Blues’ co-owner. “If you’re a [soccer] lover or not, it doesn’t matter. Come down, see a match, see the men and women play … stand on the field and bleed blue.”

Ten days after Charlottesville native Connor Shellenberger broke the UVA men’s lacrosse team’s all-time assists record, he put a cherry on top of his storied college career by breaking the Cav’s all-time points record.

“It’s unbelievable,” Shellenberger said of the feat in an interview following the March match against the University of Albany. “Just to be part of the tradition and play here at Klockner, and be a part of some of the great rivalries…” 

In addition to a record-breaking career at UVA, Shellenberger, who was selected number two overall by the New York Atlas in May’s Premier Lacrosse League draft, led the Hoos to a 2021 national championship (and was named the tournament’s MVP) and is a three-time first-team All-American. But Coach Lars Tiffany says being one of UVA’s best-ever lacrosse players is only part of what’s made Shellenberger’s time as a Hoo extraordinary. He is “the most unselfish player I know. He wants to be known as a great teammate … We almost have to tell him to shoot the ball, to be more aggressive!” 

Which is what Shellenberger did on the first day of spring at Klockner Stadium, where the hometown hero broke the university’s all-time scoring record in front of a hometown crowd.

The primary mission of Loaves & Fishes Food Pantry is to feed people. But last year the nonprofit, which prides itself on letting almost nothing go to waste, donated about 66,000 pounds of spoiled food to local pig farmers—keeping many tons out of landfills. 

“Loaves & Fishes invests labor into inspecting all of our food before we give it out,” says Jane Colony Mills, the organization’s executive director. “When we find food that is starting to spoil, in broken packaging, or otherwise not something we would eat ourselves, we give it to area pig farmers to feed their livestock. Pigs get fruits and vegetables, bread and cakes, meat with broken wrappers, and sometimes even milk and eggs.” Sounds like the squeal deal to us!

The joy of hunting for the perfect tomato or apple at a farmers’ market is seriously dampened when you’re getting soaked by a downpour. Which is why a spankin’ new red building now stands where there once was only a white tent at 2775 Barracks Rd. After months of construction, the Barracks Road Farm Market reopened this spring with the same impressive array of fruits and vegetables, plants and flowers, eggs, meat, and fish, and baked goods, maple syrup, honey, and pickles—but now shoppers are protected from the elements while they peruse the spot’s offerings. By moving inside, “we hope to better accommodate our customers, offer a better shopping experience, and be able to have a better display,” says Maynard Swarey, the market’s co-owner. If the substantial crowd and flatbeds overflowing with goodies on a recent Friday afternoon is any indication, Swarey has more than achieved his goal.