When I was younger, my parents took me to Hey Mikey's for the first time while we were at The…read moreStrand, right when it first opened, and I got a behemoth of an ice cream cone. I got a t-shirt too that I wore for years until it was ultimately retired. I actually wrote a Yelp review about it that I deleted. In it, I said "The smell of the waffle cones filled the place with smiles and enjoyment. I knew I wanted a waffle cone." What a terrible critic. He will never be Yelp Elite.
I haven't been back to Hey Mikey's since then, just because I haven't really been back to Galveston in some time, but my memories of the unique ice cream flavors and toppings remained.
Heading back to Galveston for a cruise, I wanted to try and make a stop there again for nostalgia's sake. Instead of heading to the Airbnb, my girlfriend and I drove straight to Hey Mikey's as our first stop in Galveston. We got there around 8:45 pm, which was 15 minutes before they closed (our fault). This is no diss to Hey Mikey's, but almost everything else on The Strand on a Thursday night closes way too early, so it felt like everyone was at Hey Mikey's. The line was extensive in front of us and behind us even after it closed.
After waiting through the line for quite some time, I got a waffle cone with their cereal milk ice cream, which had Fruity Pebbles in it, topped with Lucky Charms. They gave it to me with a temperature-changing plastic spoon that turned from yellow to purple when cold. The ice cream was sensational. What an incredible flavor. The only downside was the waffle cone being a little stale, but I fault that to it being a waffle cone ordered right at closing time.
The next night, I returned with my cousins and ordered a cup of cereal milk ice cream with Cocoa Puffs as the topping instead. Fantastic stuff. Once again, being there too close to closing meant we had to wait, and we didn't get our ice cream until 9:30, a full 30 minutes after they closed. It was nice that they still served us though!
One thing I did notice, which I don't know if it's a normal thing, is that since Hey Mikey's is the only ice cream shop open past 8 o'clock on most weeknights, they seem to get a lot of foot traffic after that time. Their menu is pretty large in its offerings. If it were just scoops of ice cream, the line would move fast, but so many people were ordering shakes, which are a lot more labor-intensive and removed a staff member from their assembly line to focus on the shake. I don't have any advice on how they could easily move the line in the later hours of the night, but man, those kids are working their butts off for everyone to get their late-night sweet treat.
Hey Mikey's, you are just as good as I remember.