Nashville’s first Indian creamery is situated on the second floor of a strip mall plaza right across from Vandy, and it's a favorite with the university’s students, staff, and just about everyone with a semi-functioning palate. The Indian-style ice cream and kulfis are made in-house daily, along with a selection of puff pastries. The kesar (saffron) is one of our favorite flavors, but the chai spice and mango also earn high marks.

It isn’t a proper Nashville ice cream guide without a Bobbie’s shout-out. This institution has been doling out dipped soft serve cones from its retro pink-and-green shack since 1951. The dip flavors rotate—chocolate and cherry pop up often—and you can also order burgers, hot dogs, and some pretty stacked milkshakes like the Memphis Mafia with banana chunks, peanut butter, and bacon. Everything is outdoors here: You’ll make the queue at the window and take your cone to one of the picnic tables.

Kokos specializes in plant-based ice cream. Which will come in handy when you’re hanging with your vegan bestie and need a creamy cup of something cold to take the sting out of a triple-digit-degree day. All of their ice creams are made using a coconut base, including the refreshing mint chocolate chip and the piña colada, which is a great dupe for the actual cocktail. If you’re looking for soft serve, they have a machine doing that, too, and it’s every bit as creamy as their scoops.

The team at Fryce Cream took the classic pastime of dipping fries in Frostys from Wendy's and made it their entire business model. The fries come in a basket next to a cup of your chosen soft serve flavor, which prevents the spuds from getting too soggy. You can opt to dust your fries with a variety of changing flavors like hot Cheetos and blackberry goat cheese, but we’re partial to the umami wasabi for the subtle heat and richness it brings to the taters.

Owned by a family with roots in Oaxaca, the rich, creamy scoops here nod to their heritage with flavors like mamey, cheese and guava, mango with chamoy, and mezcal. But the goods don’t stop at ice cream—you can also grab some of their homemade pastries, chicharones, and mini donuts to enjoy with your cup of avocado ice cream. And when the weather dips, you can still swing by The Bee for warm cups of arroz con leche sprinkled with cinnamon.

The owner, whose name is indeed Mike, left a career in accounting to churn ice cream in the aughts, and the shop’s been a Nashville staple ever since. While you can find Mike’s scoops at Sip Cafe in Inglewood, his Downtown shop on the riverfront serves classic milkshakes, sundaes, and seasonal goodies like peach iced tea ice cream and orange creamsicle floats. But what we particularly love are the throwback ice cream concoctions. Egg cream sodas, malts, and floats are alive and well at Mike’s.

Sweet Sofia’s is brightening up Bellevue with homemade milk and water-based paletas, fresh-made ice cream, and other Mexican treats. The mango paleta with chamoy and Tajin is the move, but you really can’t go wrong with any of the selections here, like the strawberry cheesecake or moose tracks ice cream that you can opt to have plopped on top of churros. And consider yourself lucky if you stop in when their tamales, chicharron preparados, and street corn are fresh out of the kitchen.

It was only a matter of time before a concept like Tipsy Scoop landed in Nashville. Booze and ice cream scream summer on Broadway. They’re touting themselves as an ice cream “barlour,” because most of their scoops are booze-infused and clock in at a 5% ABV, like the dark chocolate whiskey salted caramel and mango margarita sorbet. But you can also order up full-on cocktails here that combine Tipsy Scoop’s ice cream with sake, cider, prosecco, and spirits.

The Midtown storefront bakes their brownies and soft cookies daily, from which you make custom sandwiches mixing and matching the cookies, ice cream flavors, and toppings. And sure, you can keep it classic with a chocolate chip cookie and old-fashioned vanilla combo, but you can find that anywhere. We like to get a bit wild here and combine things like the blue Cookie Monster cookie with toasted s’mores ice cream—sometimes it’s nice to let your inner kindergartener win out.

The chain’s first location outside of Ohio was the East Nashville shop. And while they’re now all over, the quality hasn’t dropped. Half the fun of going is getting to sample as many of Jeni’s flavors as possible before deciding on your final scoop. While the classics like Gooey Butter Cake and Brown Butter Almond Brittle are on constant rotation, the limited-edition seasonal flavors know how to bring the lines on release day.