Kids are experts at cooling off. Ask them one of the best ways to beat the heat, and they’ll tell you it’s the summertime snack for kids of all ages: ice cream. We did some field research - somebody had to, right? - to find the area’s best. From gooey, piled-high waffle cones to sophisticated Italian confections, the Twin City offers plenty of flavors, with whipped cream and a cherry on top if you like. Here are our favorites.

Bill and Leah’s
265 West Mountain Street, Kernersville

Bill and Leah’s brick exterior has a retro quality, a mark of maturity rather than trendiness. Locals have found there way here for seventeen years because they love the food.

Although Bill and Leah’s serves traditional American fare of burgers and dogs, the centerpiece of the restaurant is the ice-cream counter. “We wanted a place where you could get a good hot dog and some ice cream,” owner Bill Melton says. Melton often can be found flipping burgers at the grill. Bill’s wife, Leah, has lived in Kernersville all her life. Bill joined her there when they were married thirty-four years ago.

Bill and Leah’s is hopping in the evenings with extended families and local kids’ sports teams stopping in after practice or a game - especially on weekends. It’s the little restaurant around the corner where everybody meets to eat. And the ice cream? “We use Hershey’s and Pet,” Bill says, two all-American favorites.

We tried Strawberry Cheesecake in a sugar cone. The ice cream was super-sweet, with a ribbon of bright-red strawberry topping adding color and flavor to the vanilla. Go with a plain cone rather than a waffle to tone down its richness.

Blue Ridge Ice Creams
135 South Stratford Road, Winston-Salem

Blue Ridge Ice Creams sits unassumingly in the Stratford Place shopping center. What makes the place stand apart, though, is more than its funky bright-green interior paint job and chalkboard menu. Blue Ridge’s specialty is, well, specialty ice creams. One of its most popular flavors is Key Lime Pie, a tangy key-lime ice cream with pieces of soft graham-cracker crust mixed in.

Owner Debbie Lee has a knack for making flavors that customers love, including Dulce de Leche gelato. They make it just the way you like it, and that’s why they’ve been in business for nineteen years. Although Blue Ridge makes a point of rotating flavors, you can almost always find one of the favorites. But, if your fave flav isn’t on the menu, pick any ice cream in the cooler and toppings to be folded in, and presto, you have a custom flavor. It might not make the menu, but you can get it every time.

Another popular Blue Ridge flavor? “We make cookies and cream for Wake Forest University functions,” Lee says, “. in black and gold.”

We tried Key Lime Pie, Dulce de Leche gelato, and Mint Chocolate Chip gelato. The Dulce de Leche is very rich, best eaten from a small bowl rather than interrupting the texture and flavor with a cone. The Mint Chocolate Chip gelato is bliss for mint lovers; the gelato’s density creates the mintiest flavor I’ve ever had in ice cream.

Doss’ Old Fashion Ice Cream
406 North Main Street, Kernersville
On weekend evenings, Doss’ Old Fashion Ice Cream bustles with people who are as eclectic as the memorabilia on the walls. Doss’ isn’t gimmicky, though. This downtown Kernersville diner is one hundred percent Southern soda-shop authentic.

“My wife, Tonya, is a clown freak,” owner Windy Doss says, explaining why smiling bozos adorn the walls. “She also loves puzzles, and that’s why we have so many framed crosswords. We love Coca-Cola stuff, too. We’ve had a good business relationship with them for years.”

Doss worked with his dad at another family restaurant in Winston-Salem before moving to Kernersville. He and Tonya decided to open an ice-cream shop, he says, because “all you need is a running freezer.”

The ice-cream counter boasts more flavors than you can read before it’s your turn to order. Since opening their doors twenty-one years ago, the Dosses have used Buttercup brand ice cream, chosen for its high butterfat content and the consistency of its flavors. As loyal customers know, the rich sweetness of old-fashioned ice cream is a nod to sticky-fingered childhood, and it always will be.

We tried Rocky Road in a waffle cone. One word: Heaven. This is how ice cream should taste.

Healthful Alternatives

Café Gelato
845 Reynolda Road, Winston-Salem

Café Gelato’s small, trendy space has a few tables and a lot of zest. The ice cream - a misnomer, since gelato isn’t made with cream, but with milk or water - is flavorful, smooth, and fresh. In short, the perfect grown-up indulgence.

Gelato is an Italian creation that typically has less fat and more intense flavor than American ice creams. Ciska Weber, originally from Holland, owns the recently opened shop and makes the gelato by hand every day.

Weber took a two-day course, offered by a gelato- equipment manufacturer that happens to be headquartered in Winston-Salem, on using fresh ingredients. Most of her ingredients are local products that she buys at the farmers market.

“I find my recipes by playing around with them,” Weber says. “They say that in Italy, every family has its own technique. I’m starting to see that I have my own, too.”

We tried strawberry, pineapple, banana, lemon, and peanut butter with chocolate wafer. If you love fruit, you’ll love Weber’s confections. Each variety captures the essence of the fruit with flavor that will linger on your tongue long after the gelato melts away. Non-fruit flavors, including coffee and chocolate, are available. Feel free to make requests - Weber is open to suggestions.

Flashback Smoothies and Soda Shop
1003 Brookstown Avenue, downtown Winston-Salem

Flashback Smoothies and Soda Shop is in a quirky, triangular building. The décor is retro-1950s, complete with a Campbell’s soup clock. The shop offers a menu of fruit smoothies made with yogurt, juice, sherbet, and different supplements (at your request) - in other words, a delicious, healthful alternative to ice cream or even lunch. But, the shop does have ice cream - and a “Top Dog” award for its toasted hot dogs.

Owner Michael Clinton, along with his sons Michael Jr., eleven, and Matthew, seven, strives for excellence in quality and customer service. The shop never ices down its smoothies, and “the boys are sticklers for sanitation,” says Clinton, whose shop boasts a one-hundred-and-one health-inspection rating for the second time in a row.

Clinton and his sons wanted to create a place in the community where “good folk gather.” “We want to know every customer’s name, to create a vintage flashback to yesteryear, but with a new-age drink. Smoothies are the new malts.”

We tried cookies and cream in a cone, a pineapple and banana smoothie, and a strawberry and banana smoothie. While the ice cream was delicious, the smoothies are superb - thick and creamy, hearty enough to serve as an on-the-go lunch. I f you have time - and room - pair a smoothie with an award-winning hot dog and chips as a combo meal.