Since 1952, Jersey Freeze has been serving their delicious ice cream to the Township of Freehold. Now, they have expanded their routes to a second location, ice cream menu items, and Great American Food! Did you know that Jersey Freeze is Bruce Springsteen’s favorite go-to ice cream shop?

Jersey Freeze was founded by the Blackmore family in 1952 and opened up shop in Freehold, New Jersey. For years, the establishment mainly served ice cream as their main event, but with years of success by about the 1970’s, Freehold’s Jersey Freeze became a new go-to-spot for not only ice cream, but fast food as well. 

Flash forward to the 1990’s, Katie Dinonno, a high school student working for Jersey Freeze, made herself the manager after she was done working there. Then in 2014, Katie along with Matt Cangialosi took the restaurant off of Bruce Blackmore’s hands, purchasing it from him because he wanted to retire. 

To this day, Jersey Freeze’s owners take great care of the restaurant, adding on more and more menu items on both sides, food and ice cream, and they are always giving back to their community. In March 2020, Katie and Matt successfully opened up their second location at Bell Works in Holmdel, New Jersey. 

Jersey Freeze’s significant status stood out to me. They’re instagram and tik toks of their beautiful creations in the making made me crave their ice cream more and more. Little did I even know how good the food was before I got my hands on the ice cream.

The building has two sides, one for the food and the other for the ice cream. Inside the dining area was a convenient restaurant. You order at the register and they give you a number to take with you to your table so they bring out the food to you as you patiently wait. The seating is nice, there are many tables almost like booths which are very comfortable. The vibe was pretty cool too. It was about a 15 minute wait on my meal, and that wait was well worth it.

The Jersey Cheesesteak is thin sliced sirloin, grilled onions, mozzarella cheese, and ranch dressing on a hoagie roll for $9.75. All sandwiches are made with a basket that comes with a side of chips. The chips were salted very well, serving as a great side with the sandwich. It was an amazing, crispy, and flavorful 9.4/10. I also got a side of their Crinkle Cut French Fries which were served in a basket. They were appetizing and fit Jersey Freeze well so I would give it them an 8.9/10. It would be in the 9’s if it had more of a crunch. Bringing it back to the main event, The Jersey Cheesesteak was outstanding. Although I was looking to explore the ranch dressing on the cheesesteak, I don’t think they put it on there. Maybe it was for the best, I wasn’t even sure if I was going to like it. Plus, I put ketchup on the cheesesteak which was a game changer, so I was not mad. Besides that, the cheesesteak’s hoagie roll was fresh and soft, the cheese was melted all over and the onions were super tasty. It came hot off the grill as a very big portion, I loved it! I’m going to give it an 8.8/10, I really enjoyed it. I pulled the ultimate power move by putting the chips on my cheesesteak. That power crunch blew me away, it was an experience for sure!

All of this food filled me up, but there’s always room for ice cream, even if you have to make room! In this case I had to because I could not resist my first time having ice cream at Jersey Freeze! The ice cream side stands a little shop with seating outside. When I walked inside, there were so many options to choose from. Hard ice cream, soft serve, milkshakes, and many more. But what really caught my eye was Jersey Freeze’s famous boats. You can choose an ice cream flavor soft or hard as your base, then the toppings follow from which boat you choose. The Brownie Treat, hot fudge on a fudge brownie looked marvelous, so I decided to go with that. Now I saw that the sizes for the boats come in either a half or a full, so I asked the girl taking my order how big the full was. She showed me the container which was long but I figured they layered the bottom in ice cream and then the fudge brownie along with hot fudge on top. It sounded like a good sundae to me, so I decided to go with a full and I chose chocolate soft serve as my ice cream. The girl then told me that I was able to pick out another flavor. I was a little confused as to why, but I went with it and said hard Cookies -N- Creme. I had absolutely no idea what I was in for.

When the boat came out, my stomach dropped. I stood there in shock as I accepted this humongous masterpiece. On one side stood a mountain of chocolate soft serve, the other a mountain of hard Cookies -N- Creme. In between each lied three giant fudge brownies. The entire thing was drizzled with hot fudge and the mountains were topped with whipped cream. As you can see, this was not what I expected at all and I was already full so this was a pretty memorable first time at Jersey Freeze.

I dug in and the boat blew me away, or should I say cruise ship. The fudge brownie was so fudgy and the chocolate soft serve was extraordinary. The hard Cookies -N- Creme was pretty good, but I preferred soft serve on the cruise ship. The hot fudge was nice and warm, fudgy as well, and you can never go wrong with whipped cream to top it all off. This cruise ship was purely delectable. Although I was full, I pushed myself to my pure limit to the point where it was getting hard to breathe. My stomach reached its full capacity and my food baby was something else. Regardless, it was well worth it as it sent me home home full and happy. The Brownie Treat was a fun experience, earning a 9.8/10. I highly recommend getting a half unless you’re really hungry!

I had a really great time at Jersey Freeze. The quality of the food and ice cream knocked it out of the ballpark. I will be coming back with a lesson learned to not get a full boat, turning the boat into a cruise ship! If I do go for a cruise ship, I’d have to walk it off in the Freehold Raceway Mall afterwards! 

Jersey Freeze

Location: 120 Manalapan Avenue 101 Crawfords Corner Rd Holmdel, 120 Manalapan Ave, Freehold, NJ 07728

Phone: (732) 462-3008

Website: jerseyfreeze1952.com

Offerings: Dine-in, Curbside Pickup, and Delivery

Store Hours: Sunday-Thursday: 11AM-9PM  Friday-Saturday: 11AM-9:30PM