With just a few days left before Halloween, parents look for ways to entertain the kids with spooky things. Even better is finding a way to pair goblins with family eats plus a dollop of history. At the crossroads of the very small village of Brandywine, Md., Dave and Cheryl Watts offer a pleasing family solution at their Ice Cream Factory & Café: spooky figures, burgers and soft custard ice cream, and a setting that’s smack dab on the escape route of Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth.
In fact, the setting is itself a historic relic and designated as a Prince George’s County Historic Site, built circa 1867 and known originally as the Marlow-Huntt General Store & Post Office, and serving for decades as a general store, and later as a church and then an antiques shop before being abandoned to history and the skills of retired builder Watts. Today the revamped site, one of three or so businesses and a high school at a busy crossroads, beckons tourists and residents alike to drop in. And at holiday times, Cheryl sets about glamorizing the property with seasonal-appropriate decorations. Now, of course, it’s the scary mannequins lining the parking lot, described by Cheryl as “enchanted Halloween characters resembling lifelike Mardi Gras folks.”
She adds that people stop by all the time, doing a double-take and asking if they are real.
After the kids play with the figurines, and maybe have their pictures taken, it’s a sure bet that families will head indoors for the food. Proud of their menu — “our recipes are proprietary,” says Cheryl — the Watts serve their very own crab cakes and cream of crab soup, plus a list of family-friendly eats, including tender pork ribs, certified Angus beef burgers, and corn dogs.
They have also devoted time to developing their own soft-serve frozen custard with 24 flavors in all, with such seasonal specialties as pumpkin and caramel.
Emphasizing the care they take with making this frozen treat, Cheryl describes the arduous task of preparing the raisins for their rum-raisin custard. “Raisins often have little stems on their end,” she says, “and you can’t have little stems in the custard, so I handpick all the raisins, and cook them down to make them soft. It’s very painstaking.”
While there may be no trick-or-treaters pounding on their door on Halloween, the Watts do expect folks to enjoy their goblins, the string of bat lights decorating the front porch, and the fortifying treats to keep families and tricksters on the go.
