Editor’s Note: This establishment is no longer located at the address below.

Pizza Zone
2571 Quadra St.
Victoria, BC

E: It’s just ice-cream James … really, it is. C’mon now, Island Farms?

Well, okay, I admit we needed something different after going to Young’s Restaurant but just to see a bloke turn into a tyke was amusing enough when we stopped in at Pizza Zone across the block.

They had a section offering soft ice cream that started at $2.50 for a cone. But what set James off were the bottles of cola. They were tiny. They were the old-style coke bottles from the 80’s.

J: They weren’t tiny. Tiny is Coke’s recent 6-pack of glass bottles. Now that’s tiny. These were my fond memories as a kid. These were the original bottles.

No girly twist off caps here. If you can’t wrench these open with your teeth or at least use a bottle opener for these babies, then go back to your klutz proof plastic ones.

E: Strangely enough, I remember those vending machines with the bottle openers. Geez, am I really that old? But it wasn’t colas that we were after that day. I craved dessert and remembered Pizza Zone sold ’em.

J: They offered soft serve ice cream with three choices: chocolate, vanilla or swirl. And the rebel that I am was pushed to its limits. I looked at our server and with a deep manly voice said, “oooo swirl.”

E: And I had to roll my eyes.

J: Come on, I haven’t had this much fun ordering ice cream since Beacon Drive-In.

E: Yes, our server was cute and I was tempted to look around like a trained puppy too. But there was no house floating by being carried by balloons. This was the right neighbourhood for it.

I thought about the more exotic flavours that weren’t soft served, but I did have green tea mochis waiting for me at home. So it was chocolate for me.

J: Soft serve ice cream is a hit and miss affair depending on the place. At worst, you can get an order where you taste too much butter or, like Pizza Zone, you can be served something so light and creamy, you swore angels made it.

And the chocolate must’ve contained angel dust. Okay, it was cocoa powder but it’s a great idea.

E: I’m still thinking of the mochis at home. There’s nothing like a soft, squishy rice cake that’s wrapped around ice cream. There’s other flavourings one can add in this Japanese delight, but when compared to Canadian style offerings, the price felt right but I remained stoic like a Samurai.

It was the kid known as James which I had to wrench home. His parents can put him to bed after his sugar high.