Screwballs has a friendly staff.
Oh, come on. You know you’ve angled your head sideways while you were walking, sticking your tongue out like a lizard to catch all the drops sliding down your knuckles. And maybe you thought, because so many treats now come to you compliments of your grocer’s freezer section, that the experience of going to the neighborhood ice cream shop for an icy-cold treat was lost and gone forever.
Rest assured, it’s alive and well in Locust Point, at Screwball’s. (Note to all those Southeast residents who are ready to come to the defense of their own local place: put the phone down. We’re going to get there.) Chill.
This week, it’s all about the new kids on the block: Irene Bain and Kathy Fleming. Lifelong friends who found themselves antsy after four years of retirement, they purchased a long-shuttered sub shop at the corner of Towson and Clement streets and decided to transform it into a snowball stand. And then they got a shock. “Some of the people who had lived around here for years started coming in, and they told us it used to be an ice cream store about 40 years ago.”
The ice cream store was called Ellis’s, and one of its specialties was a lemon phosphate. Not only was the lemon phosphate good, said the old-timers, but it was the ultimate hangover cure. (Screwballs would like to offer that again for old times’ sake, so if you ever mixed one, or think you could, they’d love to hear the recipe from you. Also wanted? Old time photos of Ellis patrons, either eating there or hanging out around the shop. Anyone who can help out is asked to e-mail screwballs.kai@hotmail.com.)
Snowballs and ice cream (which is available in both hand-dipped and soft-serve) have standard flavors for traditionalists, and s some more esoteric varieties. If you’re making the journey on a diet, don’t despair, either; some of the coolest-sounding flavors around are available in a sugar-free variety.
On our visit, we grabbed a sampler of three ice cream with flavors including chocolate peanut butter, fresh ginger and orange blossom (to share with the office). Colleagues loved the chocolate peanut butter and the orange blossom (described by one person as being ‘creamsicle-ish’), but being ice cream traditionalists, they didn’t quite know what to make of the ginger.
We also indulged ourselves in a Screwball, the signature dessert made with layers of snowball (in your choice of flavor) and soft-serve (ditto).
Ours, which used wedding cake snowball flavor and vanilla soft-serve with a cherry on top, was a dose of brain-freezing happiness on a hot Thursday afternoon. And (bonus points) it comes in a tall cup so you won’t be doing the head-angling, tongue-sticking-out maneuver.
Screwballs, which is located at 1400 Towson Street, is open 1 p.m.-9 p.m. from Tuesday through Sunday. It is closed on Monday. Major credit cards are accepted.
—by Mary Helen Sprecher
newsroom@baltimoreguide.com
