Business & Tech

'Fresh' Restaurant Also Serves Healthy Ice Cream Choices

'Green' restaurant offers such goodies as handmade ice cream sandwiches.

Not all of the popular ice cream spots in the area are official ice cream parlors.

Take Fresh restaurant, off Allen Road in at the Village Highland Center in The Hills section of Basking Ridge. Fresh is one of New Jersey's few certified "Green Restaurant Association" eateries.

Fresh wasn't always a semi-organic, health-conscious restaurant, with such touches as bamboo floors and wooden window shutters recycled from an old barn. In fact, a few years ago, it was a Daily Queen that served up such specialties as burgers, fried chicken and fries along with DQ's trademark ice cream.

After it's remake, Fresh may look like a totally different shop, but it still has one major leftover from the space's previous life as a Dairy Queen — a large soft-serve ice cream dispenser.

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These days, the machine is used to serve either vanilla or chocolate soft-service ice cream or frozen yogurt. Store manager Amanda Stevens said the flavors of the frozen yogurt can vary — this week's specialty flavor was coffee. The menu at the store listed sizes at $3.50, $5.50 or $8.

Either is available with a wide variety of toppings, including gummy bears, crushed Oreos, Swedish fish and more, and comes in either a dish or waffle cone. 

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But one of Fresh's specialty ice cream offerings are its handmade ice cream sandwiches, which are nothing like the bland ice-cream sandwiches in your supermarket freezer.

On a recent hot day, I opted for the larger ($4.95, as compared with $3.95) option of chocolate ice cream, rimmed with sprinkles, sandwiched between two chocolate chip cookies. Cookies (with other options such as sugar cookies) arrive freshly baked each day from Uncle Ralph's in Maryland, Stevens said.

The sandwich was great — and this coming from someone who is unlikely to eat an ice cream sandwich out of a box. I cut it apart and gave a (smaller) half to my son. He, too, seemed to really enjoy our choice.

Fresh's online ice cream page says the restaurant's hand-spun ice cream shakes are another specialty. Some sound more like a mixed drink — take blueberry pomegranate, with fresh blueberries and pomegranate sauce.

Stevens said this summer's hot weather has been bringing in some customers who are just looking for ice cream instead of just ordering it as dessert along with one of Fresh's many meals on the menu.

Fresh's address is 562 Allen Road. It is open from 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Monday through Saturday.


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