Beat The Heat With A Bowl of Ice Cream

Photo by Karya Kent

ZANESVILLE, Ohio– If you don’t have access to a pool you can still find relief from the heat with a nice bowl of ice cream.

Take a bite out of history at Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl. It’s like you’re stepping back into the 1950s when you enter this restaurant, which features homemade items from ice cream, nuts, and candy. General Manager and Ice Cream Maker Joe Baker said Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl is just like a diner from the 1950s. Baker said Owner Bill Sullivan entrusts him to make the best ice cream in town. Baker makes the ice cream from scratch with the help of an Emory Thompson machine.

“You basically freeze it down until it’s a thick consistency,” Sullivan said. “Then you whip it back up and whip air into it. And while you’re doing that you either add flavors to it, or if its like bits and pieces. You have to throw them in. We don’t have machinery. We have me. So I throw bits and pieces as I go along.”

During the summer months Baker makes upwards to 600 gallons of ice cream each week.

“I would have made 350 gallons today. And I’m making Friday and Sunday also. So yeah it can be up above 600 gallons a week during the summer especially with this kind of heat,” Sullivan said.

Baker hopes to introduce strawberry short cake flavor ice cream within the next few days.