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Sorry for any inconvenience or annoyance. Because I prefer the Wordpress platform, I've moved my Northeast PA / Pike & Wayne County real estate blog to

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Please visit me there - that blog covers all of Pike and Wayne County.


Thank you!

The Dairy Twist Diary - Wayne County Memories of Ice Cream in Hawley, Honesdale, & Wallenpaupack

Okay, so this isn't a diary. I just liked the play on "dairy" and "diary." Chill out and have a cool moo.

The Lake Wallenpaupack area has changed a great deal since I was a little kid - some of it for the better, some of it "indifferent" (to me), and some of it, sad to say, for the worse (again, to me).

Once upon a time, there was The Char Bar, where you could get burgers and what my mom's friend Rose used to call "custard", but I called "soft ice cream." Now, that same building houses a rival real estate office which shall remain nameless, and a lawyer. Totally renovated some years ago, it looks nothing like the old fashioned drive-in that used to be there.

On main street in Hawley, what is now Joe and Lorenzo's Pizzeria, (above which you will find the WEICHERT, REALTORS® - Paupack Group office, btw) used to be Smith's Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor. Years before my time it was a different ice cream parlor, as I remember the old, slightly rusted Breyer's sign hanging there. But Smith's, which featured a delightful old fashioned decor and home made ice cream - is no more.

Smith's, like its predecessor, has gone the way of The Hawley Department Store, Drake's Hardware, Ungers Five and Ten, Brown's Drug Store...I think the only things on Main Street have been the same for decades is Teeter's Furniture, The Hawley Diner, and The Trading Post (though the new owners added WhatKnots to their name, they kept the old Indian sign and motiff). Even Teeter's looks different, since it was rebuilt after a terrible fire in the 1980's.

Following Route 6 out of town, we find a plain ranch style building that used to be called, simply, The Hut. My parents liked to go there for pierogies and Texas Weiners. I liked to go there for...duh, ice cream. The former Hut has been reorganized into two small apartments....a duplex, I think. Strange...I wonder if the place smells like old deep fryers and sugar cones when it rains?

Heading toward Honesdale, in Indian Orchard, was my favoritest place of all time: The Tastee Freez, a franchised establishment. There you could get very rich tasting soft ice cream with a heavy vanilla flavor. My family used to purchase a bucket of Tastee Chicken (with extra drumsticks) to take to Prompton Dam State Park for our annual picnic and fishing expedition. I remember the distinctive orange and white bucket, and the words Tastee had what looked like chicken drumsticks on top of the "e"s. Weird, the things you remember.

Next door to the Tastee Freez was some sort of buckskin shop, I forget its name, but you could get deerskin jackets, moccasins, purses, and little Indian girl dolls in PA buckskin dresses. My dad got my mom a deerskin jacket for Christmas. She never had the heart to tell him she wasn't the buckskin type!

Now, that building houses an outlet of the Scranton Times newspaper delivery center, and I think McMullen Painting. On another sad note, in addition to the loss of the Tastee Freez, Indian Orchard also lost the Maple Drive In Theater - it's now a Ford car dealership. The snack shop at the Drive In smelled exactly like the Tastee Freez, btw. Hot french fries and hamburgers!

Take a side trip down Rt. 652 to Beach Lake in Wayne County, and you will find The Carousel where you could ride Go Karts after eating your ice cream. Thank heavens, it remains. They've added "stuff" to it since I was a kid, but it's still The Carousel. I liked going there at night because of the funky yellow flourescent lights. I'll blog about that place another time. Let's go back down Rt. 652 and turn right on Route 6. Drive past the K-mart that hardly looks like it did 30 years ago, and we'll head right out of Honesdale.

Just south of Honesdale, on Rt. 191 (Sunrise Ave), was Sandercock's Dairy. Ahhh....Sandercock's. Like Smith's, they sold home made ice cream in delightful flavors that you rarely see in stores - such as orange pineapple. I remember crying until my dad figured out what I meant by "green ice cream" - he'd never heard of chocolate chip mint before, but I had seen kids with green ice cream, and I wanted some too! Dad, a butter pecan man, never understood. Alongside the ice cream store was a small pond with ducks and geese. Sandercock's eventually became Rothrock's - a store that didn't sell ice cream.

Weaving our way back to Hawley over Cherry Ridge Road (Owego Turnpike), we find the only remnant of my childhood ice cream passion: The Dairy Twist.Located near the intersection of Route 6 and 590, it stands like a frozen bulwark, determined to cool the masses for generations.

Even the sign is the same, brightly beckoning overheated pilgrims to come and find a frosty wonderland of frigid treats. The owners have changed a few times - but somehow, the vanilla ice cream has remained the same delicious creamy white fluff that I remember.

Awnings have been added, and some new picnic tables; the menu has changed somewhat. You can still get an upside down banana split, a cherry sundae with extra cherries, a root beer float. Besides the token vanilla, chocolate, and twist soft ice cream flavors, The Dairy Twist has added frozen yogurt, and some cool additional flavors to make the choices of soft ice cream well over 25.

My favorite change to The Dairy Twist though is that they open before Memorial Day, and stay open until at least Columbus Day. When I was a child, not only did I mourn the passing of summer with Labor Day, but all the soft ice cream joints shut down when the goldenrod became yellow... what a horror; the start of school and the end of ice cream for nine long months!

Every time I pull up to The Dairy Twist, I contemplate some of the cool flavors. Root beer. Caramel. Java. Orange Pineapple? (nah, it could never be like Sandercock's!)

I'll take a medium vanilla cone, please.