Vic's Ice Cream

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Vic's Ice Cream (est. 1947) is a restaurant located in the Land Park neighborhood of Sacramento, California. Although Vic's also serves sandwiches, it is known for its ice cream and deserts. All of the ice cream served at Vic's is made each morning on the premises.

1 Atmosphere
2 Menu Items
3 Vic's as Community Center
- 3.1 Vic's and Sacramento Politicians
4 Awards
5 Rumors
6 External links

[edit] Atmosphere

Vic's is noted by customers and restaurant reviewers for maintaining much the same atmosphere that it had when the store opened in 1947. The black and white checkered floor tiles, tight blue jeans and tucked-in shirts worn by employees, and menu items all date back to the store's inception during the Truman administration.

[edit] Menu Items

Vic's Ice Cream, despite the indication implied in the name of the establishment, has a menu which includes more than just ice cream.

[edit] Ice Cream Flavors

Vic's carries 29 different flavors of ice cream at all times and at any given time during the year several seasonal flavors become available. Of the so-called everyday flavors, customer favorites include mint chip, muddy mocha and toasted almond. Seasonal flavors include spumoni, egg nog, and pumpkin which become available during the Winter holiday season as well as butter brittle and lemon chiffon which become available during the summer. Vic's also carries the following flavors of 95% fat-free ice cream: vanilla, mint chip, blackberry, mocha chip, and fudge brittle (which is a combination of fudge ribbon and butter brittle). Sadly, Vic's no longer makes what many Sacramentans considered to be its best summer flavor: mango sherbet.

In addition to ice cream, Vic's carries the following flavors of sherbet: orange, lime, strawberry, and pineapple.

[edit] Garlic Ice Cream

Each year Vic's is contracted to produce three gallons of garlic ice cream for the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California. This is the only time that Vic's garlic ice cream can be consumed because it is never available at the Sacramento restaurant.

[edit] Other Desert Items

Vic's serves a long list of old fashioned ice-cream-based deserts including milkshakes, malts, sundaes, sherbet freezes- a blended desert whipped up from sherbet, flavored syrup and seltzer water - and frappes. The largest desert item available at Vic's is the banana split which is composed of three scoops of ice cream, a banana, chopped and roasted almonds, and whipped cream.

[edit] Sandwiches

Vic's serves sandwiches for lunch and dinner. The hot dog and cheese dog (which is a hot dog sandwich with American cheese) tend to be customer favorites, but the reuben, egg salad sandwich, and tuna sandwich are popular too.

[edit] "Secret" Menu Items

Since Vic's is a traditional establishment, many of the customers who currently eat at Vic's have done so for many years. During this time, the menu has undergone modifications but customers can still order items that are no longer on the menu. These so-called "secret" items include:

Orange Frisbee: An orange sherbet freeze which contains vanilla ice cream.

Black and White Sundae: This is a layered ice cream sundae composed of a scoop of chocolate, covered with marshmallow sauce. Atop this sits a scoop of vanilla ice cream covered with hot fudge. The black and white sundae is served in a tall beverage glass.

Red Sauce: Made from an undisclosed formula, Red Sauce is a cocktail sauce-like concoction that comes in a small cup and can be used as a dipping sauce for the potato chips that come with sandwiches or put on the sandwiches themselves. Customers, especially long-time Vic's customers, frequently speculate as to the composition of Red Sauce. These guesses tend to be that it is a mixture of mustard, ketchup, and a secret ingredient but these claims are unverified and purely conjectural.

[edit] Vic's as Community Center

Land Park, the neighborhood in which Vic's is situated, is a populous and diverse residential community near downtown Sacramento. Many parents in Land Park bring their children to Vic's after events such as little league soccer and baseball games which take place in nearby William Land Park (the park for which the neighborhood is named). Many of these children have grown up and now take their own families to Vic's Ice Cream, creating a group of second and third generation Vic's customers.

Since Vic's is so tied to the Land Park community, the front window of the store is used for not-for-profit community bulletins. These bulletins include announcements of free community events or lost pet posters.

[edit] Vic's and Sacramento Politicians

Vic's one of many local dining venues in which Sacramento's politicians engage in so-called "power lunches" - midday meetings in which policy or political strategy are discussed.

Vic's is a favorite dining location of life-long Land Park resident and California gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides, who claims to have done much of the early courting of his wife at the ice cream parlor.

Additionally, Vic's was a favored dining location of the late United States Representative Robert Matsui and his wife, current United States Representative Doris Matsui.

[edit] Awards

In the Sacramento Magazine's 2005 Subscriber's Choice Dining Awards, Vic's received 3rd Place in the Best Ice Cream Parlor category.

[edit] Rumors

Customers at Vic's reported having seen former Sacramento Kings power forward Chris Webber dining with supermodel Tyra Banks at a booth at Vic's. While this claim was echoed by Vic's employees it was never documented or substantiated.

There is also a Sacramento urban legend which holds that Cher came into Vic's one night before her concert at Arco Arena and asked to use the restroom. Supposedly she expressed her gratitude by signing a copy of one of her records which was then hung in the Vic's restroom. This rumor is widely believed by Vic's customers to be false and the aforementioned record is not in the restroom. However, a former employee of Vic's attests that this in fact did happen and the record was simply taken down by the owner.