Hot Dish: Ironing in the Kinks

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You know how you can breeze past a storefront a zillion times, never once stopping in—not for lack of curiosity but the timing just isn’t quite right?

That had been my choreographed routine with the frozen custard shop on Fifth, first when it was Abbott’s and then when it became Kohr’s Family Frozen Custard last spring. But one recent evening, the tantalizing smell of freshly formed waffle cones, finally lured me in. I nearly expected to see the stucco replaced with gingerbread, frosting and gumdrops—that was how powerless I was to the sweet aroma wafting through the air. A young employee was ironing in the picture-perfect kinks as fast as people ordered them (my waffle cone must have been less than five minutes old by the time I devoured it).

Custard nuts will appreciate the double-digit varieties of the creamy confection, but, if you’re like myself—a hard-core fan of the old-fashioned scoop-able treat—don’t pass over the nine or so flavors in the tubs below. The Naples Kohr’s is owned by a band of brothers with roots in the frozen custard world (their great-grandfather started Kohr’s Bros. in 1919 on Coney Island, a franchise with locations still across the Eastern Seaboard today), but this generation actually got their start making wholesale batches of the hardened sweet stuff under the name Republic Ice Cream (which is still going strong—and is sold at the store). They take “from scratch” seriously, canning the cherries that go into “cherry-on-top vanilla” and baking their grandma’s chocolatey sandwich cookies to crumble up in “home-style cookies and cream.”

One taste and, let’s just say, my old habit of walking on by was broken for good.

Kohr’s Family Frozen Custard

491 Fifth Ave. S., Naples

(239) 228-6468

11 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily

republicicecream.com

Around-the-World Chocolate Chip