The Scoop: The Pop Shop, Collingswood
A summertime journey across the Philadelphia region in search of great ice cream and other frozen treats.
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The deal: Lying in the shadow of Camden is Collingswood, a quaint little 'burb that draws on memories of small-town America with a main drag lined with small businesses and restaurants. In 2005, Stink Fisher and his wife, Connie, gave the town the perfect dining spot to match its retro atmosphere: The Pop Shop, a storefront diner with an authentic soda counter pulled from a shuttered Ohio dinette.
Details: 729 Haddon Ave., Collingswood, N.J., Open 8 a.m.- 9 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 8 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday; 7:30 a.m.- 10 p.m. Saturday; 7:30 a.m.-8 p.m. Sunday. 856-869-0111.
Inside: A Technicolor tribute to every neighborhood soda fountain in America, circa 1950, complete with kitschy wall clocks and black-and-white checkered floors. Think Arnold's from "Happy Days" with a few more tables.
The wait: Virtually none on a recent weekday afternoon, but the Pop Shop is a madhouse on the weekends, especially during the breakfast rush.
What we ate: The Shakin' Bacon Milkshake, a sweet-and-salty treat that combines vanilla ice cream, crispy bacon bits and pancake syrup. The Pop Shop is celebrated for both its all-day breakfast menu and seven-page dessert menu, so it only made sense for us to try a combination of the two. We weren't disappointed.
We wanted to eat: The Take Me Out to the Ball Game sundae: three scoops of chocolate ice cream topped with caramel sauce, peanuts, pretzels and caramel popcorn. Get it?
What we'll have next: The Cupcake, another crazy milk-shake concoction that blends an entire cupcake with vanilla ice cream, cupcake-flavored syrup and icing. Our teeth ache already.
Save room for dinner: Besides its impressive repertoire of shakes and sundaes (all made fresh with Bassetts ice cream), the Pop Shop boasts a colossal set of entrees, so big that the full list is printed on a four-page mock newspaper - everything from traditional comfort foods, like burgers and chicken pot pie, to vegetarian and gluten-free dishes.
Food Network royalty: Perhaps the Pop Shop's biggest claim to fame is that its chefs beat Bobby Flay in a "Throwdown" that the Iron Chef initiated over the restaurant's famous grilled cheese sandwiches, of which 31 different versions are featured on the menu.