Hear me out: The best soft serve in North Carolina isn’t from a quaint beachside shack or an old-school spot in one of the state’s many adorable downtowns. It’s at Broken Spoke Farm, a family-owned, central NC establishment miles away from the nearest town and surrounded by farmland and grazing animals.
Though you can visit the farm any day of the week to buy fresh produce (depending on the time of year, they may have tomatoes, greens, squash, eggplant, melons, berries, flowers and more, all grown without chemicals) and say hello to the cows, sheep and chickens, the soft serve operation is only open on weekends, and closes seasonally from December through March.
Though it’s a bit of a trek to get there (it's about half an hour from where I live in Carrboro, and ten minutes from the closest town of Hillsborough), it’s become a frequent weekend excursion for me. It’s not just that the soft serve is fantastic—which it is. It’s that Broken Spoke’s flavors, which are typically made with ingredients from the farm, rotate every weekend, and are often highly creative. On a recent visit, for instance, I got strawberry and cereal milk (I always get the swirl, but you can pick just one flavor if you’d prefer). So far this year, they’ve also had fun combos like Oreo and black sesame, banana and vanilla wafer, and black cherry and chocolate cream. They always have vegan options, sometimes of the same flavors and sometimes with slight variations or sorbet versions.
You can imagine why I find myself there so often—it’s become a bit of a “gotta catch ‘em all” situation. Plus, Broken Spoke scratches a particular ice cream itch that I didn’t know I had: Though soft serve is my ice cream of choice, I also love unique flavors, and it’s devastatingly rare to see soft serve flavors that go beyond vanilla and chocolate. There’s also something about licking a cone while you watch a sheep nod off in the sun, or check out the flowers and crops growing in the nearby fields, that somehow makes the ice cream taste better.
Broken Spoke is a super family-friendly spot, with swings and toys to entertain kids as well as adorable “tiny” cones (they really are tiny!) for the littlest customers. It can get crowded, especially on sunny days, but the line moves quickly, and if the parking lot is full, you can park along the side of the rural road leading up to the farm. If you happen to stop by Broken Spoke on a weekday, you can still try the soft serve—they sell it in frozen to-go cups at the farmstand (though it’s not the same as eating it fresh out of a cone).
If you’ve made the trip to Broken Spoke Farm, make the most of it by checking out nearby downtown Hillsborough, which I love for its many shops featuring local artists, or taking a stroll though the remains of the Occoneechee Speedway or along the Holden Mill Trail.