Fleeting Food History in Cape Cod Cones
By Ian MacAllen on Monday, August 10th, 2026 at 2:05 am
Local guides are a wonderful snapshot of local history. Maria Finch Chandler’s Cape Cod Cones epitomizes the best of the genre, both in its details, and in its need for a revised version. I found the 2024 edition on display at the Orleans library. (There already is a newer 2026 edition).
The book organizes the Cape by region and then by town. Chandler begins on the outer cape in Provincetown, and works inland leaving the Islands for last. It’s efficient as a tour guide, providing visitors easy access to the specific location’s options. Each town begins with a short introduction mentioning the history and some details. It’s sparse, but enough. This is a book about ice cream after all.
The guide correctly identifies Lewis Brothers as the destination of choice. With 45 years of sampling Pronvincetown’s ice cream, it’s still where I end up. But even here, in the first town, we see how ephemeral ice cream shop guides can be. Bliss and PTown Scoop have already close permanently. (For an up-to-date summar, check out the Independent’s guide to P-Town ice cream).
In Wellfleet, Chandler recommends PJ’s coffee and black raspberry soft serve twist, and based on that recommendation, I think she might know a thing or two about ice cream. PJ’s has some of the best soft serve on the Cape. The class fried seafood shack, in addition to hard ice cream, typically offers 4 taps of soft serve – the traditional vanilla and chocolate, and a black raspberry and coffee. I’ve eaten all of these alone, and vanilla chocolate swirl. But until Chandler’s recommendation, I didn’t seriously consider swirling the black raspberry and coffee. I was wrong.
This combination proved delectable.
Chandler also gives each location of multi-unit stores an equal chance to impress, and details their specific history. Ben & Jerry’s, for instance, is owned by Unilever, but the local franchises have their own backstory which Chandler makes note of. A particularly interesting piece of information here is that the two Kreme ‘N Kone shops, separated by just a few miles along Route 28, are owned by different people and unaffiliated, a fact that I had not known until reading through the field guide.
The book led me to head over to Cobie’s in Brewster, a quaint looking roadside clam shack that I’ve passed hundreds of times. I finally stopped in after seeing it in the book. As the book notes, the ice cream is cash only, but the fried food can be paid for with card. I enjoyed both the food and the ice cream, but that’s for a different story.
However, there are some noteworthy omissions, like the absence of The Knack. The modern burger and ice cream shack has two locations now, one on the Eastham and Orleans border, and another in Hyannis. The soft serve is definitely above average, almost on par with PJ’s and significantly creamier than Bob’s Sub & Cone (but we still love Bob’s for the casual, authentic retro feel). Either way, these cones deserve a mention, and are unfortunately absent.
Meanwhile, in Eastham, Chandler avoids some messy history when it comes to Arnold’s. She quotes owner Nathan Nickerson III, but somehow omits his rather infamous adventure in Washington on January 6th. Luckily, the the Provincetown Independent has a summary of what happened, and the events that followed on Facebook. I suppose Chandler can be forgiven, as Mark Hamill would say, “it ain’t that kind of movie.” But maybe it should be.
Overall, Chandler’s Cape Cod Cones is exactly what I want in a local food guide. The history and the stories behind these often historic places is both interesting and fleeting. The book provides proof the short-lived ice cream shops existed, and documents the easily forgotten stories of the people behind the iconic, and infamous, local spots. I look forward to seeing the newest edition, and think this is a must-buy for ice cream history lovers who are traveling to Cape Cod, even if that is a highly specific demographic.
***
Cape Cod Cones: A Field Guide to Ice Cream on Cape Cod & The Islands
Maria Finch Chandler
The Light Publishing
2024
Buy it at Bookshop.org or request it from CLAMs at the Snow Library in Orleans.
