The Great Escape Ice Cream Parlor

We have been really pleased with Watkins glens’s surprising variety of vegan options- and this was our regular go to for ice cream. They had two great vegan soy choices each night we went- and even more amazing I ordered a vegan ice cream cake a few days in advance. The owners are very accommodating and made us something super special. Can’t wait to vacation here next year.

They have a hard chocolate peanut butter as well as the vanilla cookie chip. Don’t bother with the vanilla cookie flavorless and watery consistency. The chocolate peanut butter was good but it had very little peanut butter. It was really just chocolate ice cream. I asked for chocolate syrup, choc sprinkles and mini chocolate chips to make a mini vegan sundae. They didn’t have any vegan baked dessert options because they said those come from a local vendor and they don’t know what they will get. And to the previous reviewer: YES THEY ADDED YOUR HAPPY COW STICKER!

We stop by Great Escape each year during our visit to Farm Sanctuary. It's nice that there is a vegan ice cream option in town. Currently, they offer a vanilla/plain soft serve base with lots of flavor shots to chose from. As you might expect (and I'm sure is true for a non-vegan version), some flavor shots taste and work better than others. We're never that adventurous, usually going with the basics like chocolate, strawberry or banana. It's always been very good and kept us going back every year. The owner mentioned he may add a chocolate base option and maybe even some vegan hard ice cream next season!

I visited Farm Sanctuary and made a trip to this place to try their vegan soft serve ice cream. As a previous reviewer said, it was gross and a let down! They have a ton of flavors but it's basically a flavored syrup they add to the main soft serve mix. The picture is misleading you think you're getting soft serve on a cone, but it comes in milkshake form. I got the lemon flavor and it tasted like chemicals. Threw it out after a few bites was not worth the calories. I did kind of like the decor though, all the old ice cream scoops hanging from the ceiling were funky.

After reading the other reviews, I was so excited to try this vegan soft serve ice cream. Not inedible, but I threw it away after several bites. It tasted fake and chemical-y, and WAY too sweet. Really they just have a soft serve base (which wasn 't good on its own, either) and then add these artificially flavored syrups into it. I chose espresso... what a mistake. Plus, you can only order a medium if you get a flavor, which is way too large and pricey! I also got walnuts on mine and they tasted stale. The atmosphere was so tacky and almost fair-like. I didn 't get to try any vegan ice cream in Ithaca but I hear there 's some better stuff over there. I 'd say it 's worth the drive!