The Spring 2021 Flagpole Guide To Athens

File Under: Ice Cream, Something Different. You don’t need to worry about eating this cookie dough raw. It’s safe to eat and available in many flavors. Jittery Joe’s coffee, milkshakes (with cookie dough), ice cream sundaes and toppings. Some gluten-free and sugar-free choices.

File Under: Ice Cream and Smoothies, Coffee Houses and Bakeries. Features: Drive-thru, Wi-Fi, counter service.

File Under: Ice Cream and Smoothies. Features: Outside seating, counter service. Hours: 7 days.

File Under: Ice Cream and Smoothies. Features: Catering. 

File Under: Ice Cream. Features: Delivery, curbside pick-up, outside seating. Rich ice cream in lots of flavors (smoked chocolate, fruity cereal, lavender honey, plus standards), some of which swap out, plus gluten-free and puffle cones, baked goods, coffee drinks and pints to go.

File Under: Ice Cream. Old-fashioned drug store with soda fountain counter. Dollar scoops of Edy’s ice cream in a cup or cone. Malts, shakes and floats, too. Sit on the hill outside for the best experience.

File Under: Ice Cream and Smoothies, Mexican. Features: Counter service, take-out. Hours: Seven days. Rainbow-hued palace of paletas and helados, attached to La Jalisco grocery store and taqueria does a huge array of housemade frozen treats (filled popsicles are notable), plus street-food snacks like Cheetos with crema and Valentina, chopped fruit with chile and chile-flavored candies.

File Under: Ice Cream and Smoothies, Mexican. Features: Outside seating. Hours: Seven days. Astonishingly good Mexican ice cream shop that makes flavors fresh in-store daily, as well as gorgeous paletas full of fruit, rollitos (rolled ice cream), smoothies, aguas frescas and street-food snacks like Dorilocos and loaded potato chips. Tostadas de ceviche on Fridays plus specials like tamales. A food truck appears at the J&J and there’s a counter inside the Eastside Cali ’N’ Tito’s.

File Under: Ice Cream and Smoothies. Features: Curbside pick-up, delivery, take-out, catering. Hours: Seven days. High-schooler Beau Shell and his family own this super-fun ice cream shop, which has both hand-dipped and soft-serve, milkshakes, fat ice cream sandwiches (made in house), Italian ices and pints. You can hire the truck for parties, too. 

File Under: Ice Cream. Features: Outside seating, Wi-Fi. Hours: Seven days.

File Under: Ice cream and Smoothies, Coffee Houses and Bakeries. Features: Delivery, catering, outside seating. Hours: Breakfast and lunch. Former mobile business turned brick-and-mortar does both liege waffles and crowaffles, fun doughnuts in intense flavors and now biscuits with pulled pork, sausage, fried chicken and homemade jams as well as coffee drinks. Vegan and gluten-free offerings. Lots of compliments.

File Under: Downhome. Features: Take-out, vegetarian friendly, drive-thru. Hours: Breakfast and lunch Mon–Sat. Country store in Winterville does hot lunch, fresh produce, grab-and-go stuff from a cold case, biscuits in the morning and excellent homemade ice cream on Saturdays, often with fresh fruit.

File Under: Snoballs. Features: Outside seating. Hours: Seven days (closes in cold weather).

File Under: Smoothies. Features: Catering. Hours: Seven days.

File Under: Smoothies. Features: Catering, delivery, Wi-Fi. Hours: Seven days.

File Under: Ice cream. Features: Take-out, delivery. Hours: Open seven days. Science-based frozen treat franchise makes your ice cream to order, flash-freezing it.