Driving after dusk takes a bunch of the majesty out of Concordville. You know, it’s that odd little peninsula just north of York Beach. It’s all windy streets and little houses and craggy shores. Not that I know since my headlights don’t illuminate much of anything beyond mailboxes and campaign posters with this heavy fog. Finding my destination, I ate a Checkerberry cone.
At dinner a few nights before, it was my friend Sean’s mom who was the one who told us the bad news about Hodgman’s season already being over. She also made this recommendation to me, so I felt obliged to heed it as I drove south. Usually Brown’s isn’t open long after dark, so there is no light to shine on their sign, but there was forewarning that it’s at the top of the hill helped me to make it here with no problem.
For the fall they are only open Friday Saturday and Sunday from noon-8p, and only until Columbus Day, figuring that the Maine Coast is rarely in the list of anyone’s Winter destinations. Once the wind starts blowing cold, you can’t keep a place as exposed as this open long without indoor seating. However with a patch of picnic tables and the water all around, there’s probably few better places to have a cone by the ocean and not have it melt before you get there.
I was looking down the menu for something distinctly Maine. I don’t really think of Maine Tracks as having much to do with the state despite the name they replaced from the more common Moose Tracks. I wonder if that is Sarah Palin’s favorite ice cream, she does seem to like moose. Will someone please photoshop her head onto a “Bullwinkle for President” T-Shirt for me? Don’t blame me, they are the one’s who have a McCandy Caine ice cream on their menu board with a patriotic elephant next to it.
I made the choice of checkerberry without much advance knowledge. The word wintergreen is printed in small letters next to it, but I figured there was something more to it than that. Subsequent internet research has revealed that teaberry, wintergreen, and checkerberry are all the same thing. The reason for the pink hue attributed to this flavor are the small red berries that are the fruit of this plant. Not as sweet as some variants on this flavor can be, the bold cream flavor carried the mint and tempered the sugar very nicely. A really wonderful cone and a staff that was helpful even when I was asking questions as they were waiting for the moment they could close.
Sometimes I really do thing backwards. I was most concerned with ice cream, so I went for the cone first rather than dinner. I had planned to stop somewhere for a lobster roll and spied Fox’s Lobster House out by the lighthouse nearby. Since they had the added option of outdoor seating and ordering, it seemed perfect and I sat out on a stone bench in the park across the street and watched the shore get lit by the regular sweep of that lighthouse‘s beam. Had I flip-flopped my choices, Fox’s serves Shain’s of Maine ice cream so I would have found a cone. Instead I settled for a sandwich and a sample of their Pumpkin Pecan.
Cone – kids $3 small $4 large $4.75
Sundae – 1flavor $5 2flavor $6
Frappe $5
Brown’s Old Fashion Ice Cream
232 Nubble Rd, York, ME 03909
207 363-1277
Open May-Columbus Day
Fall Friday, Saturday, Sunday noon-8p Mon-Thurs Closed
We All Scream For Ice Cream! 
this blog is so distracting!
some of my favorite ice cream memories involve maine and cold weather. there’s something to be said for getting a cone in early november on MDI.
Great write up on my “Browns”. It made me long for my maple walnut ice cream. It also conjured up a scene from the past of a little boy, watching a beautiful sunset at the Nubble, ice cream dripping down his chin. Thank you. Sean’s Mom
Thought of you Jeff when I read this quote recently. “Life is like an ice cream cone, you have to lick it one day at a time”. Charles M. Shultz (of the cartoon, Peanuts, fame)
are you hiring for this summer?