Southern Candy Store - Ice Cream in Asbury Park, NJ

There are many reasons why Asbury Park is the most famous of all Jersey Shore towns. There's its long history as a resort town dating back to 1871. And the boardwalk that was soon built along with bathing pavilions and a pier cemented its reign. Throw in the convention center erected in 1929 soon to be followed by the Paramount Theater where musical groups of the day would appear, and it became the destination of visitors from neighboring states as well.

Speaking of music, Bruce Springsteen's epochal song made Asbury Park a name on the tip of the tongue of young and not-so-young people all over the world. And while River Street Sweets is not yet on the tip of the world's tongue, its candy is melting on more and more Asbury Park tongues. And now so is its ice cream. That's right the candy company founded in 1970 in a first in a small Savannah store before expanding to other locations in Savannah and Atlanta has added Asbury Park to the list of cities where it has opened franchise stores in the Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest.

And while there are plenty of places to satisfy a sweet tooth or a hankering for ice cream on the boardwalk, none of them compare to the handmade fudge and pralines made at the Asbury Park River Sweet Streets store. And the soft ice cream dispensed from machines at the boardwalk ice cream stands not only pales in comparison to the ice cream you can buy at River Street Sweets and Ice Cream Store, it also melts much quicker than the rich creamy made-from-scratch ice cream scooped by hand from buckets in the display case.

No, we may not be on the beach, but that's a good thing. It means you don't have to fight the summer boardwalk crowds to get your fix of ice cream or to bring home a pecan pie for dessert or a box of loggerheads or peanut brittle. And when the cold winds of winter blowing off the ocean close down the boardwalk you can still buy ice cream at River Street Sweets.