Jones Beach ice cream cones

A light question of no importance whatever since it's summer.

Jones Beach used to have very unique ice cream cones. The cone was a squat, cake cone with a rectangle opening on top. When you requested a flavor, the server would take a small wrapped cylinder of it and put it horizontally in the cone. You would then unroll the ice cream. I never saw that anywhere else. Anybody know the story about these? Do they still serve it that way?

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The ice cream cones at Jones Beach were called Mel-O-Rols. They were made by Borden's. I believe Borden's used three different brand names: Borden's, Horton's and Reid's. All three brands were made in the same factory using different labels. One of the special features of the cone was that it had a flat bottom, enabling the server to place it on the counter while he or she took cash and made change (with the exception noted below).As you remember,the cone was cylindrical from the bottom, rising to a rectangular shape at the top, deep enough to accommodate the lengthwise cross-section of the cylinder of ice cream. The only available flavors were chocolate, vanilla and,I think, strawberry (in those days, ice cream came in very few flavors anywhere). An advantage to the operator was that inventory could be tightly controlled, unlike scooped ice cream. The server never touched the ice cream, since the customer merely had to grab the two ends of the wrapper and unroll the product while it was still in the cone. The advantage to the eater(and the parents of small children!) was that the ice cream didn't hang over the edge of the cone, and it wouldn't drip down the outside of the cone to make the hands sticky. It's true that Mel-O-Rols were generally available elsewhere--I remember buying them at a candy store in my Forest Hills neighborhood in the late 1930s. At Jones Beach,though, the servers didn't handle money. The customers had to buy tickets in 5c 10c and 25c denominations from a cashier. The ticket colors changed daily, so people couldn't redeem stolen tickets on subsequent days. Later, the tickets were taken by "line girls" who were in front of the counter rather than behind it, so the servers couldn't "palm" tickets. This is probably much more than you wanted to know! I know all of this because my father ran all the restaurants and stands at Jones Beach (under contract with Robert Moses' Long Island State Park Commission) from 1931 until he sold his business in 1963 or 1964. I never thought there was enough ice cream in a Mel-O-Rol!

......"This is probably much more than you wanted to know!".........

What a great story! Much, much more info than I ever expected. I dropped a line in the water hoping to get maybe a minnow and came up with a whale of story! Thank!

You're welcome. How did you get the name BluPlate Spec? Are you in the restaurant business?

....."How did you get the name BluPlate Spec? Are you in the restaurant business?"...

I'm not in the food business, just created a moniker appropriate to the board. But I did grow up in Queens like you. Remember Topsy's?

I've found the Chowhound board to be one of my favorite places on the net. Kudos to the creator and staff.

I remember them - but as I recall, they were Mello Rolls, an ice cream cone variation which was widely available in NYC in the 50's and not unique to Jones Beach.

I recall them in Toronto in the 60s. Though not unique they are still good and fondly remembered.