love this place, only spot for homemade ice cream, absolutey love love the new owners , make sure you Stop here

Nice ice cream shop close to Watkins Glen. Staff is super friendly and helpful. The homemade ice cream is delicious. Lots of flavors to choose from. Plenty of seating inside and out. read more

Great Escape #160 - Brookie, mint Oreo, sea salt caramel, cannoli. - Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt Near Me - Watkins Glen, New York

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Cute little ice cream shop! We ordered two homemade flavors, apple pie and chocolate peanut butter. The chocolate peanut butter was amazing! Great friendly service and cute shop! read more

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We came by looking for some locally made ice cream, and this was a great option. They have a ton of options, including vegan and non-dairy. Some of the flavors are Hershey's, but others are made in house. You can get all the bells and whistles, like waffle cones, milkshakes, and sundaes. We got two flavors of the house made ice cream, and they were both great. The ice cream was rich and creamy. The prices were good too. They have plenty of inside and outside seating, along with parking. Inside has some cool local decor and tons of records on the ceiling. It's a great local ice cream option! read more

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After a disappointing experience the previous day for ice cream in Watkins glen, I was hesitant about trying another. This experience was a lot better, the ice cream was creamy, the combination of the peanut butter sauce and whipped cream was good. I wasn't a fan of the actual "Reese's" it tasted like a knock off brand. Overall a good experience read more

Great Escape #160 - Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt Near Me - Watkins Glen, New York

Dairy free options! Yay! Really nice service, huge portions and tons of variety. Loved it here:)

New owners recently (local!), same great ice cream (Hershey's and their own). Highly recommend.

There are plenty of ice cream shops to choose from in the Finger Lakes, NY region. This place did not disappoint! Cute and cozy, located in a busy town with tourist from Watkins Glen State Park. This shop has 3 types of ice cream - options are homemade, Oatmilk (vegan/ dairy-free), and Hershey"s brand ice cream. If they make their own ice cream, why would a person order anything other than that?! I had chocolate Oreo cookie and Coffee. The coffee was made with locally roasted coffee in Watkins Glen - highly recommended. read more

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Excellent homemade ice cream. Very rich and flavorful, raspberries were plenty full in mine. Staff was also very friendly and helpful, telling us about their ice creams and discussing their business with us. Don't miss this ice cream parlor. read more

Made quick stop for ice cream and saw that they had a homemade ice cream section, boy was that a lucky find! I had their banana choc. chunk and it was out of the world, the missus had the coffee ice cream and there were ground coffee beans mixed in there, SO Good too! Will def return! read more

Their Home made ice cream is so delicious, so many flavors and they do fun seasonal flavors as well as custom (you invent) for events! With vegan and dairy free options you can't beat Great Escape! read more

Incredible variety of ice cream and treats. I had an amaretto soft serve that was amazing. My husband was underwhelmed by his coffee soft serve, but the kids were happy with their orders. Make sure you ask for a dish even if you get your soft serve in a cone because it will be top heavy and melt over the sides and potentially tip over. They gave Hersheys hard ice cream and homemade flavors, too. read more

Great Escape #160 - a person holding an ice cream cone - Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt Near Me - Watkins Glen, New York

They sell Hershey's ice cream alongside homemade flavours. Their homemade chocolate and strawberry were good (but nothing special). The homemade sweet corn ice cream was unique: tasty and unexpectedly malty. read more

Our K-9 family member besieged us to stop here every time we crossed this store -- which we faithfully did for his puppiccino and then some for the fellow hoomans. Loved all their flavors and the country side feel. Street side with ~4 benches to sit and enjoy or take it all for the road. Perhaps overindulged -but clearly a popular place given the long lines during summer months. read more

Great Escape #160 - Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt Near Me - Watkins Glen, New York

The ice creams are so tasty! If you're in the finger lakes, save up a big appetite and fill that sweet tooth They have all kinds of ice creams -- hard ice cream, soft ice cream, gelato, slush puppies, sorbets flavors. read more

Great Escape #160 - Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt Near Me - Watkins Glen, New York

This place was amazing!!!!!!! Literally every single type of ice cream you could ask for. They had soft serve and gelato and so many flavors!! Everything sounded great! It was very hard to decide what to get! They even had gluten free cones which is unique!! The scoops were also huge!! So fun!! read more

Great Escape #160 - Mint Moose Tracks - Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt Near Me - Watkins Glen, New York

The vegan ice cream is delicious and smooth! I've only ever had packaged vegan ice creams and Great Escape's home-made vegan ice creams knocked it out of the park. My husband and I got 2 scoops each and the scoops were HUGE! I wish I knew what I was getting myself into before I ordered that. I tried a lavender blueberry coconut milk ice cream while my husband got a chocolate peanut butter soy milk ice cream. They were both super delicious; my lavender blueberry ice cream was just a wild and exciting flavor--it was sweet and tart. The ice creams were soft, creamy, smooth. I wish I had more room to finish it. There were several different vegan ice cream flavors and that was pleasantly surprising. I can't wait to come back and try out more of their flavors. Their Covid-19 precautions were sensible and appreciated. There was a one way line for ordering, and there's no indoor seating or anything. There's a large parking lot right next to The Great Escape. I wish I had known about the place the last couple of times I've been to Watkins Glen; I was missing out! I'll definitely be recommending this place to anyone heading to Watkins Glen. read more

Great Escape #160 - Lavender blueberry coconut milk ice cream - Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt Near Me - Watkins Glen, New York

Excellent vegan ice cream! We really appreciated all of the signage to wear masks and keep distance from others, as well as ordering from a window and not going inside. We ordered a medium soy chocolate peanut butter (excellent), soy vanilla oreo, and oat milk strawberry. The servings were HUGE - the medium (2 scoops) was filled to the brim and was probably a pint of ice cream, so this size is great to share among a few of you. The staff person surprised us by giving us a free sampling of their delicious lavender blueberry ice cream (vegan) which wasn't on the menu. The "sample" was in one of their kiddie or small cups, so it was a basically a full serving. We loved our experience here and would definitely return! read more

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This place is absolutely crazy good!! I got a brownie sundae and you get to have it made just the way you want it, what kind of ice cream, what kind of nuts, whole or chopped, cherry and whipped cream? Of course!!! The brownie was warm and moist, ice cream was delightful and the fudge on it was hot! One of the best sundaes I've ever had. If you're in the Finger Lakes, this is your ice cream stop!!! read more

The ice cream here is so good! Found this place after hiking Watkins Glen. If you take the trail to the bottom you can walk into town. Turn right when you walk into town and you'll see this place right after Burger King. My boyfriend and I liked it so much we ended up coming twice. They have homemade ice cream and Hershey's ice cream. I had both and I highly recommend skipping the Hershey's and sticking with their homemade options. I tried three different varieties of homemade and they were all incredible. read more

Great selection including local ice cream favorites. Great selection of cold ice cream, shakes, and other treats including some awesome pre made ice cream sandwiches. Service was fast and helpful and some old time games. Indoor and outdoor seating - be proud to have this place in my home town. read more

Really good homemade flavors. We tried Bananas Foster and Cannoli. Both had good flavor and texture. The cannoli ice cream had bits of cannoli in it along with mini chocolate chips. The bananas foster had a really good banana flavor. 10/10! read more

As we were driving by my daughter saw the vegan ice cream sign and we had to stop by and try it. We ordered a grape pie slice and it was actually very interesting tasting. The texture was almost like grape jam and wasn't to overly sweetened. A good place to stop by if you want to try something different. read more

Tasty ice cream. Take your time, 20+ flavors to choose from. We couldn't decide what to buy so we went with a four sampler. Coconut chocolate chip ice cream was the winner! read more

Great Escape #160 - Raspberry, dark chocolate, red velvet and coconut chocolate! - Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt Near Me - Watkins Glen, New York

Summary: The Great Escape is an ice cream parlor that features many types of ice cream and related treats, including but not limited to Gelato, Soft Custard, Hershey's Hard Ice Cream, smoothies, and a variety of waffle cones. Price: My fiancee and I both got a waffle cone with a soft ice cream and a topping and it came to under $10. Not too bad. Taste: I think I suffer from the same symptom as the other lower ratings on Yelp; the hard ice cream is the answer here. I had a waffle cone with vanilla soft serve and Oreo topping. Don't get me wrong, it was good, but I had a couple small gripes. - The cone was sort of heavy. Not like, weight lifting heavy, but sits heavy in your stomach. In all honesty, I couldn't finish it. That a bad thing? Eh, not really. It did have a nice hint of vanilla in it though, and it tasted good, it was just a bit thick and overly filling. - The vanilla ice cream wasn't as light as some of the other stands and parlors I've been to. It's not really fair to compare ice cream places not that close, but Long Pier in Geneva in my opinion has far superior vanilla soft serve. At least I prefer it more. - The oreo topping was good, but it was a topping, and wasn't mixed in, so only the top 1/4 of the ice cream got to enjoy the delicious cookie matrimony. But this was expected, so I can't knock them. * It's also worth noting that they also have Vegan ice cream as well as Gluten Free Cones. Their website most likely details the novelties and varieties they feature, so I'll refrain from discussing what I saw there and point you in that direction. Atmosphere: The girls behind the counter were nice and friendly. The place seems well kept for how dated it appears (but dated in a good way, gives an oldschool vibe to it). One of the better ice cream experiences in terms of this category. Overall: I'm going to go with a 3.5 and round down. I think if I were to go again and try one of their 30 hard serve Hershey's Ice Cream I'd probably end up giving The Great Escape a 4. It's a fun place to look at and gawk at the dozens of dairy delights that are beaming at you from behind the glass. However, compared to the recent soft serve I've been having, TGE was just a bit too heavy and the flavor of the ice cream was just "good" as compared to great. If you have a family of picky eaters that can't decide on flavors or varieties, come here. If you like ice cream it seems literally impossible to not be able to find a flavor or variety that doesn't sound appealing. read more

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Delicious ice cream!! The strawberry has little fruit chunks in it and it is absolutely amazing and creamy. read more

Great Escape #160 - Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt Near Me - Watkins Glen, New York

There is always delicious, rich-tasting nondairy ice cream here. My husband really likes the milkshakes, especially the cherry flavor. The service is fast and the employees are wonderful. We stop here every time we go through Watkins Glen. read more

The placard outside of the place advertises a caramel apple sundae. When I tried to order one, the snarky response was "sorry but we're out of apples." Service was slow-ish and generally indifferent to us as customers. We ended up ordering the homemade cannoli ice cream, which was tasty but somewhat icy in texture rather than smooth and creamy. read more

Amazing vegan options! The team here are terrific! We were visiting for my wife's birthday and not only did they make vegan ice cream cakes for us, but they ordered a special flavoring and made her a vegan Teaberry ice cream cake! This is such a hard flavor to find, let alone for vegans. read more

Great Escape #160 - two decorated birthday cakes - Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt Near Me - Watkins Glen, New York

This place is awesome! 24 different flavors of soft serve ice cream! Amazing! I had the cheesecake soft serve with a waffle cone and it was definitely the best soft serve I have ever had. Highly recommend. read more

Great Escape #160 - Cheesecake soft serve. - Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt Near Me - Watkins Glen, New York

Wow! Some of the best sorbet I've had in a long time. I tried the pomegranate sorbet and it was just what I needed on a hot summer evening. It was packed with pomegranate flavor and perfectly tart. I could have eaten a whole pint! read more

Go local! This is our spot! I support them, they support my business, and their ice cream is out of this world!

Sugar rush, anyone? So many flavors to choose from! My friends and I were driving to Watkins Glen when we passed by this icecream parlor. I'm so glad we turned around and decided to get some scoops to fuel us before the hike. There was a line when we walked in but the wait wasn't that bad. There is seating inside and outside, very spacious with a large parking spot. Staff were friendly and so patient despite that my friends and I were shamelessly sampling everything. I got scoops of pear sorbet as well as the blood orange sorbet, which were light and refreshing. My friends got the chocolate covered waffle cone with sprinkles, which wasn't good by itself but amazing with rum raisin with chocolate chips. They had seasonal flavors like corn, which I sampled. It was an odd flavor and definitely very different, not for me though but someone might be into it. Some other flavors we got were "heavenly hazelnut" and "maple walnut." Oh ya, they were good. The flavors I chose and most of the ones I sampled were delicious. It's a great icecream parlor to stop by if you need a little pick me up. But it wasn't mind-blowing enough for me to tell myself that I needed to go back. read more

Great Escape #160 - Instagram-worthy. - Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt Near Me - Watkins Glen, New York

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Small cup of cappuccino crunch. Big chunks of chocolate. Amazing. Strawberry milkshake. Fabulous

Phenomenal ice cream! Somehow so creamy yet so light. We tried the cappuccino crunch, homemade strawberry, homemade vanilla, and a vanilla/chocolate oreo milkshake. Cappuccino crunch was the runaway winner followed by homemade vanilla. Homemade strawberry and the milkshake were not our favorites but were still very solid. The serving sizes here are huge - two scoops was a monster serving, but none of us are complaining! We were drawn in by some cool signage and the overall eccentric vibe of the place and were very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the ice cream. read more

GREAT dairy free options!!! I had 2 scoops of sorbets: Mandarin orange and limoncello, with strawberry sauce. Intense flavor. Delicious!

Ugh I really wanted to like this place because it is so cute but the biscotti gelato tasted like vanilla frosting. The texture was just off... a bit icy. Maybe it was just a bad batch as all the other reviews seem to be glowing! read more

I highly recommend the Homemade Vegan Soymilk Oreo ice-cream! I think the owner switches the flavors around every so often, but if you get the chance to try it, please do! My lactose-intolerant self has never tried vegan ice-cream before but gave in when I saw that Great Escape offered vegan options. The soymilk is perfectly sweet and blends well with the hint of vanilla included (or maybe it wasn't vanilla. I'm not 100% sure). Oreo chunks are scattered throughout the ice-cream and add the "cookies 'n cream" effect, which is one of my all-time general favorite flavors. There is a generous portion provided (roughly about 1 cup, maybe a tad more or less) for a very low price, which is usually hard to come by when purchasing vegan and/or non-dairy ice-cream. Other vegan options included lime & lemon sorbets, and there was also normal, non-vegan ice-cream lined on the shelves with unique flavors and blends. Very pretty homemade ice-creams were also styled in ice-cream sandwiches and cookies. There were also lots of creative twists of the classic ice-cream sandwich you could buy from the shelves! I recommend this shop if you are ever traveling or live around Watkins Glen and you are looking for a dessert place with many unique and aesthetically pleasing good quality, homemade ice-creams! read more

I think of this icecream place so often--it's like two hours away from where I live but it's truly the best icecream i've ever had in my life. I want to go back to Watkins Glen just for this icecream . The butterscotch icecream is so phenomenal and my favorite. The apple pie icecream was also extremely delicious! read more

My husband and I were visiting the area. An decided on getting some ice cream. We saw this place on N. Franklin St. up the road from Ben and Jerry. I ordered the Reese's pieces overload in a waffle cone..OMG..was this so so yummy. I will definitely go back again read more

Great Escape #160 - The Reese's pieces overload - Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt Near Me - Watkins Glen, New York