Sylvan Beach Café offers a guilt-free ice cream experience. It's not that the ice cream is low in fat--as best we can tell, it's incredibly rich and bad for you--but the store is run by a nonprofit foundation that trains and educates high school dropouts. The employees live above the store, work on their GEDs, attend educational and cultural events around town, and, when time permits, sell ice cream. The Sylvan Beach folks make their own ice cream in huge machines housed in the building's basement, churning out a whole list of standards--vanilla, chocolate, butter pecan--as well as fly-by-night flavors such as mint Oreo and peanut-butter cup. The smooth flavors are incredibly creamy, while the chunky varieties are chock-full of candy, fruit, and cookies. Despite nearly daily visits to the café, we haven't tasted a mistake yet. Everything is rich and delicious, from the oversized hot-fudge sundae to the unadorned waffle cone.

Baltimore City Paper

812 Park Ave.

Baltimore, MD 21201

(410) 523-2300

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