Locals dish on their favorite ice cream

Fox Island Creamery, which opened recently inside Cosmo’s Fresh Market in Hewitt, won the endorsement of 45 percent of readers who completed an informal survey.

As the summer got under way, 600 readers of various weekly newspapers published by Straus News throughout the tristate area, cast votes for their favorite local ice cream shop.

Here are the results:

Readers who like Fox Island Creamery said their favorite flavors range from soft serve to Cookie Monster, a vanilla flavored ice cream with blue dye and loaded with Espresso Oreo Truffles.

Charlotte Hillier, owner of the business since 2019, attributed its popularity to constant changes in the menu.

She uses social media to poll customers about products and flavors. “We try to find out what people want and what they’re looking for.”

Fox Island Creamery’s products range from traditional ice cream to frozen yogurt with dairy-free and gluten-free options.

“We have a lot of different options to be able to serve as many people as possible and make everyone as happy as possible. We want our stores to be a one-stop place,” Hillier said.

The business also operates an ice cream boat, which delivers to a customer’s boat or dock. The hours that the boat is operated are posted on its Facebook page.

The informal survey also showed:

• 20% favor classics, such as blizzards, soft serve and banana splits, from Dairy Queen.

• 18 percent prefer to travel to Warwick, N.Y., to get ice cream from Bellvale Farms Creamery.