CLOVERDALE, Va. – It has been one of the hottest Augusts on record in the Roanoke Valley. Thankfully, we were able to cool off by visiting Smooshed for this week’s Tasty Tuesday. Co-owner Chris Johnson and his wife, Lauren, have taken this spur-of-the-moment idea and turned into something special.
Chris tells us, “One day, my wife said ‘Will you build this for me?’ so I couldn’t say no.”
If you build it, they will come. You have to have a name, though, right? Every time he made an ice cream sandwich, Chris says, “My wife said smoosh ‘em.”
And so a star was born. They at least had family and a love for ice cream to start with.
“We’ve got old family recipes. We love to bake. I’m an ice cream guy. We go all over, and I’ve gotta have their ice cream wherever I’m at.”
They have the basic chipwich, but they know how to keep it interesting all the time.
Johnson says, “We swap it up every week. Sometimes nightly, we’ll have a little something extra thrown in just for fun.”
The fun continues as we get closer to autumn. Apple slices get thrown in along with cinnamon and sugar for Smooshed’s homemade apple pie ice cream. Smoosh that between two snickerdoodle cookies, and you’re in Heaven. They stick to a simple menu, but there are lots of choices. For that reason, Smooshed recently started doing ice cream flights.
The reasoning, Johnson says, is so that, “Instead of settling on one big ice cream sandwich, you’re getting three smaller ones however you’d like them.”
As you can imagine, what may have started seemingly out of nowhere has now received a lot of attention in recent years.
“We’d see couples come on a Friday night as a date night. A year later, we’re at their wedding.”
If you would like Smooshed to come to an event, contact them via Facebook.