Rich and illustrious, only the most serious intents and appetites should attempt to achieve her. Shining bright on the menu like a newly crowned and caped Miss Universe is The Monday Sundae. I don’t mean adult-themed like they are NSFW (unless you’re ordering a ‘Salty Pimp’), I mean that something tells me most children aren’t begging their parents for the ‘Bea Arthur’ cone based on its title.
Now when you arrive at TBGICS you’re greeted by their perky staff and given an array of adult-themed options on their chalkboard menu. Winds that would push through the stairwells of the stations like a stampede of wild, flatulent horses. All of this was well worth it for the prize-winning soft-serve and dreamy dipping delights. Winds that would surge through the subway tunnels with each passing train and thrust up through the ceiling grates. Mostly from the rear ends of air conditioning window units, coughing car exhausts, or bellowing subway gale-force winds. Whichever way you chose, one was always being suffocated by emanating heat. Once the location was reported, the crowds would flock––with a stiff arm and a whistle into the nearest yellow cab, or ducking into the closest stifling subway station, suffering train delays. In the New York dog days of summer, people would anxiously await for the daily announcement of where they would be stationed that day via Twitter. The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop originated as The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. With its all-glass facade and a consistent line of watering-mouths cascading out the door from open til close, TBGICS caters to a rainbow of clientele––from ‘Nü-New York’ yuppies in their buttery leather Tod’s loafers, to the Polish lady who lives upstairs in her rent-controlled apartment and smells of perogies, to the Dominican teens holding hands and kissing the sweat off each other’s upper lips. Ice-cream-sandwiched between NYC’s notoriously filthy and sordid Tompkins Square Park and 1st Avenue, this cool, creamy and colorful parlor stands out like a big, gay thumb––gay, as in happy. With a name like “The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop,” you’re sure to be enthralled and delighted.