By Todd Miner, owner of Vamos! Lion Chariot Tours
Ask anyone who went to Penn State what a visitor should do on campus and the Creamery comes up before the stadium does. It is a working dairy plant that happens to sell ice cream to the public, run by the College of Agricultural Sciences, and it has been on campus longer than almost anything else students think of as tradition.
This is the practical version. When it opens, what it costs, what to order, and how to work it into a day without wasting an hour in the wrong queue.
Opening hours
The Creamery keeps longer hours than most people assume, including early mornings.
- Monday through Thursday, 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
- Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.
- Saturday, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.
- Sunday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
It closes on Thanksgiving and the Friday after, and again from December 24 through January 1 for the winter break. Those are the two occasions when visitors turn up and find the doors shut.
What it costs
A cup or a cone is $6. That is one serving, and it is worth saying plainly that the serving is larger than most people expect. Ordering two because the first sounded small is the most common mistake made at that counter.
What to order
Around two dozen flavors are on the board on any given day. Three of them have followings of their own.
- Peachy Paterno, peach ice cream, the one alumni ask for by name
- Death by Chocolate, for anyone who thinks other chocolate ice cream is holding back
- WPSU Coffee Break, coffee ice cream named after the public broadcasting station on campus
Seasonal flavors come and go through the year, and the board changes often enough that regulars check it before deciding. If the line is long and you cannot make up your mind, ask what came out that morning.
Where it is
The Creamery is in the Rodney A. Erickson Food Science Building on Curtin Road, on the University Park campus. It is a short walk from the Nittany Lion Shrine and the Arboretum, which is why most people end up doing all three in one stretch.
The Ben and Jerry's story
Penn State has taught a week long course in commercial ice cream manufacturing for well over a century. Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield took a version of it before opening their first shop in a converted petrol station in Vermont. The course still runs, and it still fills.
It is a good story and it happens to be true, which is more than can be said for most campus legends.
Fitting it into a visit
The Creamery sits in the middle of the part of campus most visitors want to see. The Shrine, Old Main, the Arboretum and the Creamery are all within the same stretch, but it is a large campus and the walk between them is longer than a map suggests.
On a chariot tour it becomes one stop among several rather than a decision about whether you have the legs for it. That matters most for families with young children, for grandparents, and on football weekends when the walking has already been done.
See Penn State the Fun Way
Vamos! Lion Chariot Tours offers private, guided pedicab tours of the University Park campus and downtown State College, a relaxing, memorable way to take it all in.