By Emre and Saul Som Castellano.

The two of us, brothers on San Juan Island, have been lucky enough to sample ice cream sold at various shops and stands across the island. In case readers are looking for cold summer treats, here are our impressions:

Roche Harbor

The Roche Harbor expresso stand serves 12 flavors of sherbets, sorbets and ice creams. Their ice cream is delicious with a marvelous texture just sweetening their ice cream. If you don’t like sweetness or ice cream, you could try their sorbet or sherbet which can be sour or sweet. They also have pastries and doughnuts which can also be amazing. The ice cream place can be reached by car or trolley. This Roche Harbor ice cream place serves great ice cream.

The Pelindaba Lavender (150 First Street)

The Lavender Farm does in fact make ice cream along with many souvenirs and cooking materials such as honey, chutney, and chocolate sauce. There are two Lavender stores, one being the actual farm itself and the other being in town. They have more classic flavors on their menu, but they are all lavender based. There is, however, an unusual flavor of lavender lemon sorbet. The flavors sadly do not change but they are all quite unique.

Friday Harbor Ice Cream Co. (1 Front Street)

Down by where you get off the ferry, there is a wonderful ice cream stand. It’s the big red building with the sign that say 58 flavors. True to its word it does have an amazing number of flavors ranging from 4 kinds of Vanilla to Pop Rocks. To go along with this array of flavors is an amazing selection of toppings from Sour Patch Kids to marshmallow sauce. Also, to be noted is the wonderous thing known as Half and Half. Which means that if you get a single you can split it into two different flavors. For example, Orange Sherbet and Vanilla make the flavor of Orange Cream soda.

Vic’s (26 Second Street)

Vic’s is like Mac Donald’s before McDonalds grew into the dark side of capitalism. It is a cheery joyous place that basically seems like Pops from the Archie comics. It has a very 50s vibe and is a lot of fun to go to. It also has soft serve, a rare thing on this island along with the soft serve they also have nine different flavors of ice cream and some very delicious malts. It also serves food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It has some delicious food including an amazing Hawaiian burger.

Sweet Retreat (264 Spring Street)

Sweet Retreat is a nice ice cream stand in Friday Harbor. It is in the center of town. It has hot dogs, shaved ice, banana splits, sundaes and ice cream. They have many shaved ice flavors including coconut, mango, root beer and more. They have wonderful ice creams from which I would suggest the salted caramel ice cream. Sweet Retreat serves wonderful smoothies and sandwiches also.

Yo! Friday Harbor (160 First Street)

This store serves lots of stuff. They serve 24 flavors. They also sell flowers and sweets. They also serve boba tea which is tea with boba balls of different flavors in them. They have chocolate and lollipops. They serve great ice cream sorbet and sherbet. Yo! Friday Harbor serves amazing Lopez Island creamery ice cream.