Crossroads Beverage and Deli

 Crossroads Beverage and Deli

Waterbury, VT  

As a creemee spot, there are essentially two ways to go. There are the high-end spots. They use lots of real maple syrup, high butterfat content, maybe some freaky homemade flavors, and charge a premium. Cater to vacationers, skida moms, and the true hedonists. 

And there are the common creemee stands. These provide an essential public service, like a libarary or a park. Cheap prices, large servings, basic flavors, with no claims of artisinality. Crossroads is exemplary of the cheap creemee stand. It is perfect in that regard. It is staffed by high schoolers who don't give a shit if the business makes a single dollar and pour big portions in between vape hits. The flavors are entirely unremarkable, but I've never had a remotely icy creemee here.  

• Flavor Selection: 1 Maple, chocolate, vanilla, rotating 4th flavor.
• Value: 1. Gas station creemees are always good value. $3.50 for a large small. 
• Texture: 2 Never icy, but also not the high-fat decadence of a fancy spot.
• Flavor: 1. I am showing incredible restraint not giving Crossroads top marks in all categories. This is how you know this is a trustworthy guide. Their website says they use Kingdom Creamery maple which is, I think, the baseline for real maple which all others must meet or exceed. The actual menu at the window says they use Hood, though. 
• Window: 1. Buying a creemee indoors is repulsive. I might make this category worth more. Outdoor creemee lines are third spaces.
• Bonus: 1. If too many places get better scores than Crossroads I will change the entire scoring rubrik or delete the website. Of course it gets a bonus. 
• TOTAL
• Small Maple, $3.50, 7 LICKS 👅👅👅👅👅👅👅