Hancock County ice cream parlor is a Mississippi Coast gem. Here’s what to get
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- Ms. Mary’s Old Town Snoballs operates two locations in Hancock County, MS.
- Menus include over 100 flavor options across snoballs, shakes and malts.
- Offerings extend beyond dessert to include hot dogs, pretzels and coffee.
How many local, family-operated businesses can say they opened in 2020, of all years, and are still thriving today?
Ms. Mary’s Old Town Snoballs can. There’s even two locations. The parlor has been wooing folks with “over 100 flavors of snoballs, shakes and malts” according to its website.
Ice cream in South Mississippi is always a sound idea. But Ms. Mary’s does more than that, offering a full coffee menu, lunch items, dinner and snacks.
But, yeah, it was the ice cream that caught me while scrolling through Facebook.
The two spots are in Bay St. Louis and Waveland. The former is the OG joint and the latter opened July 4 last year.
The Waveland location at 2203 Nicholson Avenue, just off Highway 90, is a pink-blasted building in between a drooping pig on a picnic table and a bronzed bucking stallion.
It’s hard to miss. (I missed it, actually).
Here’s what we had
There is a lot going on with this menu. It’s actually broken up into several menus placed around the cozy dining room.
Blue Bell ice cream, nachos, shakes, coffee, pretzels, sundaes, sandwiches and more can be a tad overwhelming. And we haven’t even gotten to the snoballs.
There are over 80 base snoball flavors. Among them are cream cheese, dill pickle and carrot cake. If you’re not a psychopath, there’s also fun flavors like mudslide, dinosaur (I don’t know what this is, but it sounds cool) and cake batter.
The classics hang around, too, with tiger blood, cherry, blue raspberry and other old favorites. There is also a set of sugar-free flavors.
And if you’re feeling extra freaky, you can toss some nerds on it, douse it in sour spray or infest it with gummy worms.
I went rich and sweet. Caramel cappuccino and s’mores flavoring with vanilla ice cream stuffed in the middle.
I did not know this was possible until this day. The breadth of my snow cone knowledge came from the four options I was given in little league.
The first thing that hits you is the texture. It’s more homemade ice cream than ice in a plastic cone. The flavors I chose were the perfect pair and reminded me a lot of fall and winter desserts. Which was great, because I am very much done being hot every day.
Just in case this wasn’t enough, I did tack on a 32 oz. old-fashioned banana split. Nothing too crazy.
This is what I had for lunch, by the way. Nine-year-old me would be so proud.
If I came back and did it all again, these would be my top three combos to choose from:
- Butter beer plus cake batter with sprinkles and ice cream stuffing.
- White Russian and strawberry. Also with ice cream.
- King cake and chocolate layered with marshmallow cream.
And maybe I’ll get some real food, too. I can pass along, though, that the Chicago dog with diced tomatoes, onions, sweet relish, dijon mustard, peppers and celery salt got an A+ from the wife.
I’m eyeing the The Texan hot dog with bacon, barbecue sauce and jalapenos, personally.
The locals have known, but Ms. Mary’s is well worth the drive to Hancock County.
Bay St. Louis address: 203 N 2nd Street
