The Ice Cream Challenge: Cold Stone Creamery Vs. Marble Slab Creamery

It's that time of year again .... The temperatures are heating up as summer nears, which means only one thing - it's time for some ice cream! Two ice cream parlors, Cold Stone Creamery and Marble Slab Creamery, create dessert delights for ice cream lovers throughout the United States. The concept behind these ice cream parlors is pretty much the same - Cold Stone Creamery and Marble Slab Creamery both create custom desserts where you can pick the ice cream and mix-ins (such as Oreos and Snickers) and have the exact tasty treat that you are looking for. The question is - which of these ice cream parlors are the best? We tested both Cold Stone Creamery and Marble Slab Creamery ice cream parlors to determine which of these had the best ice cream based on selection, service, price, and experience. Here is what we found in this battle of Cold Stone Creamery and Marble Slab Creamery ice cream parlors.

Selection: Both Cold Stone Creamery and Marble Slab Creamery ice cream parlors have a great selection of ice cream and mix-in offerings. Marble Slab Creamery had a delicious raspberry ice cream and Cold Stone Creamery had a great tangerine sorbet, while both ice cream parlors have yummy cake batter flavor ice creams and a delicious low-fat vanilla ice cream for those watching their weight. Our findings were that Cold Stone Creamery and Marble Slab Creamery ice cream parlors are about equal as far as selection goes.

Service: There was no contest here - Cold Stone Creamery is the hands down winner for ice cream parlor service! We went to Cold Stone Creamery on a busy, warm Friday night. We had never visited a Cold Stone Creamery before and had no idea what we were looking to order. The Cold Stone Creamery staff was more than helpful, allowing us multiple tastings, suggesting new flavors and concoctions, and being more than patient with us as we deliberated over what to order. We visited Marble Slab Creamery on a cooler night in which the Marble Slab Creamery ice cream parlor was not quite as crowded. The single server behind the Marble Slab Creamery counter was not rude by any means, but certainly not nearly as friendly or helpful as the Cold Stone Creamery folks, even though Marble Slab Creamery was much less crowded than Cold Stone Creamery on our visit.

Price: The prices are pretty similar between Cold Stone Creamery and Marble Slab Creamery, although for us the Marble Slab Creamery pricing was a little more difficult to understand (it wasn't clear what was included in the base price and our server didn't volunteer information at Marble Slab Creamery - our Cold Stone Creamery server told us exactly what was included in the price, so that made it a little easier to decide what to order). There wasn't much of a price difference (about 70 cents) between the smallest and the largest size at Cold Stone Creamery or Marble Slab Creamery. Visiting either ice cream parlor certainly isn't cheap, though, with the largest dessert or shake being about $4.00 in our area, but the large is plenty big enough for the kids to split. With the confusing price information at Marble Slab Creamery, Cold Stone Creamery won the pricing portion of our ice cream parlor challenge.

Experience: Both Cold Stone Creamery and Marble Slab Creamery offer in-store seating in which you can enjoy your ice cream. In our area, both ice cream parlors were located in strip malls, so you could sit outside on the sidewalk if you wanted to sit outside, but there is no dedicated outside seating area at either ice cream parlor. The friendly service at Cold Stone Creamery made the experience at Cold Stone Creamery much more enjoyable than that at Marble Stone Creamery.

Winner: With the selection being about the same between Cold Stone Creamery and Marble Slab Creamery, the great service and experience, as well as easier to understand price, made Cold Stone Creamery the stand-out winner of our ice cream parlor challenge. Hope that you enjoy your ice cream!!!