We were very excited when a Stewart's opened near my daughter in NJ. We would always go to the Stewart's on the Boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ for lunch when we went for our annual weekly vacation and enjoyed it immensely! Boy, were we ever disappointed! The food was terrible (the hot dogs were just about raw and they were skinny and had too much topping on them and the burgers had nothing to recommend them at all), The fries tasted like they were frozen fries which were microwaved. But, as bad as the food was, the root beer floats were worse! I got a root beer float with chocolate ice cream and it came with HARD ice cream, which was very icy. The root beer was very warm and the ice cream extremely hard, but it didn't melt at all while I was eating/drinking it. It just sat there in the mug in a lump!

The question I have was prompted by the discussion my husband and I had later. I said that in all the years I had I been having root beer floats, I have never had one with hard ice cream in it. He said I was not remembering correctly because he said that soft ice cream was not available until the middle to late 1950's, so root beer floats we had before that had to have been made with hard ice cream. I disagree with him. I seem to remember having ice cream floats when I was a kkid with soft serve ice cream and I was born in 1945, so that would have been in the early 1950s. Does anyone know (1) when soft serve ice cream became commonly used? and (2) if it is normal practice to use hard ice cream in root beer floats? and (3) does Stewart's usually use hard serve or seft serve in their floats?

Hi Grammy,

If I remember correctly, the last time I had a float at a Stewart's was in central NJ about 15 years ago, and the ice cream was...hard. Sorry!
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Kevin Guske

So heres a tribute toast with root beer in hand to you and the many mugs of suds along your happy trails. --Charles Wysocki, artist and root beer fan, 1928-2002

Grammy - funny thing, I've never had a root beer float with soft serve ice cream! Unfortunately, I've never eaten at a Stewart's, so I cannot help you on that point.

I guess I forgot to mention I've have had floats with hard ice cream. Mostly homemade, but I can recall having hard ice cream at an A&W probably in the 1980s.

yeah, i don;t think i have ever had a float with soft ice cream, at Stewarts or otherwise. that does not sound very good...
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