Here’s the Scoop: The Best Ice Cream in Grand Forks

My family and I are experts at finding the best ice cream wherever we go and that includes in our town. We love ice cream so much, it was the theme of my sixth birthday party and the ice cream truck even came! This article will make your mouth water and want to go get some ice cream. No matter what end of town you live on, there’s an ice cream shop near you.

The Board Room has an ice cream flight that comes with four flavors of ice cream and five toppings you can put on the ice cream. When we visited last, the ice cream flavors were salted caramel with espresso, pirates’ treasure, barking pretzel, and brownie s’more. The toppings included nuts, caramel sauce, chocolate sauce, sprinkles, and Oreos. With all of these options there are more than 1,024 combinations!

Tea and Crepe has delicious Thai rolled ice cream. My favorite rolled ice cream is the Panda Panda and it includes cookies and cream Thai ice cream and Oreos! They also serve their ice cream inside of fresh and delicious crepes. My favorite is the strawberry truffle with strawberry ice cream and chocolate truffles wrapped inside a warm crepe. And did you know they have a new location? Their new place is so much bigger and has really cute wall art!

One of the best ways to get ice cream in Grand Forks is to listen for the ice cream truck music. Any time you hear Fur Elise, grab money, and don’t even worry about shoes and take off to find the Brain Freeze truck. My favorite thing to get there is the massive king cone. It is practically the size of my head. Even better? If you are having a party or event, you can call and ask them to stop by!

Sweet Waters Cafe is new to Grand Forks and there are two places you can go. They are known for their coffee and pastries BUT they have delicious milkshakes. You can get the regular chocolate or vanilla milkshakes, but the best and most unique milkshake is their Nepali Brew which has Vietnamese espresso and chocolate. It is SO good. One of their shops is attached to the assisted living facility where my grandma lives. If you want, you can stop at Sweet Waters, and then go visit in the social room at the assisted living facility!

Have you heard about Insomnia Cookies? It’s a new cookie shop in downtown Grand Forks that serves delicious warm cookies, but I bet you didn’t know that they also serve ice cream. You can mix and match cookies and ice cream flavors to make your own ice cream cookie sandwich. You can have two different cookie flavors and two different ice cream flavors all in one sandwich. On my last visit I had the birthday cake sprinkle cookie with cookie dough ice cream and cookies and cream ice cream. One of my friends had M&M cookies sandwiched around cookies and cream ice cream. She thought it was delicious too! My mom did the open cookie (the salted caramel) with moose tracks ice cream because the sandwich was too much for her. They also deliver cookies nearly ANY TIME of day.

There are a lot of ice cream chains in the Grand Forks and East Grand Forks area. Some of my favorites are Cold Stone and Dairy Queen, and Cherry Berry in East Grand Forks. My favorite thing to get at Cold Stone is the birthday cake remix. It has birthday cake ice cream with a small brownie and sprinkles and chocolate drizzle. But, don’t worry if you don’t really like chocolate because it’s not overpowering. I don’t really like chocolate and I like this a lot. At Dairy Queen I really like the birthday cake dipped cone. Do you see a pattern here? I really like birthday cake flavored things. At Cherry Berry, my mom thinks we do just a little bit of frozen yogurt and then most of the bowl is candy and toppings.

Not all of the best ice cream has to come from an ice cream shop. There are many restaurants in town that have AMAZING ice cream menu items. My absolutely favorite ice cream treat is the Molten Cookie Dough Brownie desert at the Blue Moose. It has two giant freshly baked brownies that have a cookie top that is just barely baked and gooey. On top of the cookie brownie are giant scoops of melting vanilla ice cream with dollops of whipped cream and chocolate drizzle around the plate. We order it and they bring us four spoons to share as a family. Other favorites are the fried ice cream at Paradiso, and the chocolate decadence at Ely’s Ivy. I know there are even more and I encourage you to say “yes, please” the next time a server asks if you would like to see the desert menu!

If you’re a kid and you are looking for an excuse for ice cream, my parents love to use ice cream to celebrate and to enjoy after our activities. Check out my other article about the many clubs, teams, and groups you can join in Grand Forks,  Too Cool For School: Kids Activities, Clubs, and Teams Beyond School in Grand Forks. And if you are a grown up, you don’t need an excuse for ice cream! Head out on foot, or bike, or car and try out one of these sweet spots!