Sitting in Southeast Cary, located in the heart of the Triangle of North Carolina, is the best ice-cream you can get in the Piedmont. Just down the road from my high school alma mater, in a bustling shopping mall is Andia’s Homemade Ice cream. This one-of-a-kind treat comes from a family run spot that promises to always “Scoop with love.” With 128 different flavors, the possibilities at Andia’s are endless.
My first time at Andia’s, a whoosh of cold air hit me as a I walked inside the brightly lit store. It was crowded, with tables occupied with teenagers, and families holding two-scoop waffle cones. A few kids had their hands pressed against the glass of the freezer pointing to the flavors they wanted to try. I was greeted by the cashier with a smile as I shifted through the crowd to see the flavors that were available.
As I scanned the long freezer of flavors, the young cashier saw my Elon t-shirt and said excitedly, “I just got accepted to Elon!” We talked about our majors and I learned that the family who owned Andia’s had two children, a daughter and son, who attended Elon too. What a coincidence!
Andia’s was created in 2016, known for its premium quality ice cream with the same “bar none customer service.” Andia herself grew up in a traditional Greek household and immigrated to the United States from Cyprus when she was six years old. Inspired by her and her husband's childhood memories of enjoying ice cream with their families, they ventured into the ice cream making world. The original name of the business was “The Freezing Point,” but it didn’t feel write to the Xouris family, so they changed in 2016 to Andia’s Homemade Ice cream because it made it feel like the ice-cream was made, in Andia’s words “in our own small commercial kitchen one-by-one.”
I asked to sample the strawberry ice cream, my favorite flavor. As I took my first bite, the taste was rich and sweet, unlike any other ice cream I’d ever had. I could taste the strawberries as the ice cream melted in my mouth. The ice cream was extremely cold, just how I liked it. There is nothing worse than soft semi-melted ice cream. I ordered a cup with two large scoops of strawberry. The cup felt so cold in my hand as I paid. As I sat on a bench just outside to enjoy my dessert, I watched as people streamed in and out of the shop as the sun began to set, leaving with cones, cups, and pints of delicious homemade ice cream.
Comments