The Purple Monkey Ice Cream Store

A perfect example of how to fail as a local business:
1. Open up a competing business to a beloved staple of the community (Blue Pig)
2. Give it a rip-​off name (Purple Monkey).
3. Overcharge for stock ice cream and nickel and dime parents for everything ($ 1 for sprinkles??)
4. Have a staff and owner who don’t seem to like the majority of their patrons (kids).
5. After a long-​awaited Fro-​Yo place finally opens up in the same community, attempt to undermine their business by purchasing Fro-​Yo machines and offering frozen yogurt.
6. Never thanking any of the Little League Managers who brought their teams to your business week after week.
Epilogue: Both Purple Monkeys (Croton and Ossining) out of business as of end of 2013.

Closed for biz.

Good ice cream but a bit overpriced.

I still enjoy Purple Monkey, and this might be petty but they’ve obviously decided to try to capitalize on the froyo craze and the setup is decent enough. There’s 6 flavors and loads of toppings including sauces. I wasn’t thrilled with the actual taste of the Frogurt brand froyo. The biggest downside however is that it seems to have taken at least one to two cases of flavors of ice cream away for these huge machines. I actually liked the ice cream here so to lose probably 10 or more flavors of really good ice cream for 6 different mediocre froyo is disappointing.

The customer service really sucks!
One monday night, when I brought my son there, no one was serving inside. A middle-​aged man was chatting with his co-​worker outside the store and having his smoking break. About half minute after we came in, he stopped the conversation and came in the store to serve us. He asked me the flavor we’d like, but didn’t ask about the size. Then my son started to pick the flavor of his ice cream. I was also looking down helping to make his choices. After him picking the 3^rd flavor, he yelled at us saying «you kept changing the size». Feeling shocked, I then realized he had been changing the cup size as my son adding the flavors. I actually did mention to him that I want a triple scoop in the beginning, but maybe he was just coming back from his break and didn’t hear what I said. I am fine with that as miscommunication does take place all the time. Nevertheless, I don’t think yelling at the customer is acceptable at all. Moreover, there were other customers at the store that time. I feel really bad about the whole experience.

Cool selection of ice creams, some imaginative and different flavors from the usual. I prefer going to small businesses of course over chain crap. THis was just right in price and quality was spot on. For a small cone I couldn’t even finish it all! Will def be coming back this summer when its hot and I need a break from work !

I love this place for its goofy theme and delicious ice cream, and a visit to Memphis Mae’s (a few doors down) often ends in my family and I wandering on over to cap off our meal with some unique treats. They use Gifford’s ice cream, and the selection of standard favorites plus some unexpected flavors like Maine Blueberry is sure to please everyone in your group.

There is place for all the ice cream specialty stores, but Purple Money has my heart thanks to its Frogurt. The delicious flavor of that frozen yogurt brings me back on weekly basis. There are many many flavors of ice cream, and soft serve is right next to the frogurt machine, but for my eyes, its only Frogurt I see. With new flavors every week, and plain flavor a constant beacon of deliciousness, this place is a great addition to the neighborhood.
The place is large and accommodating, with a mural of, well, a Purple Money, what else? Staff is always very very friendly.
A big big plus is that you can purchase the products to bring home. Yes, that’s right, Frogurt for your home. It cannot get any better!
Enjoy!

I prefer the Purple Monkey over the Blue Pig just for their customer service. The first time I went to the Purple Monkey, I was driving home and swung by around 9:15, hoping they would be open. The lights were on, but the woman was cleaning and the doors were locked, so I started to pull away. The woman saw me, waved, opened the door and let me in. Many businesses don’t let you in one minute after closing time, I showed up a quarter hour after and she let me in and served me some delicious purple monkey ice cream with M&M’s. What a great first experience.
I have returned several times since. I usually get the purple monkey ice cream, but recently I tried their mango sorbet, and YUM! Sweet and refreshing. Definitely my favorite ice cream place around.

This is a nice local ice cream/​yogurt shop. It’s not as kitschy (read: annoying) as the Blue Pig. I haven’t had their regular ice cream; just their rainbow sortbet (so-​so) and their butterscotch soft-​serve frozen yogurt (the bomb). I know they change up the flavors of the fro-​yo.
Friendly staff, but a bit schmoozy so be prepared to wait a bit if there’s a conversation taking place that’s more interesting than your order.

Taking a cue from all of my ice cream loving Unilocal friends I decided to check out this new/​new to me ice cream shop. Now one of my cats likes to have her vanilla ice cream every night (!) so being a good meowmie (!!), I try to find her different interpretations of vanilla lest she get complacent or bored.
The shop itself is very cute with an adorable mural of Purple Monkey and friends overlooking the numerous tables they have. I am sure it will be quite crowded in the more traditional ice cream season. They serve Gifford’s Ice Cream which is from Maine (/www.giffordsicecream.com) and even have a very festively colored Purple Monkey Ice Cream which must be very popular with the rugrat set.
I also picked up a couple of scoops of Wild Maine Blueberry to share with The L. while we watch the snow coming down tonight/​tomorrow/​hopefully that’s it. I tried a sample which was pretty tasty.
But I must mention the service. The lady there was soooo nice and even put my ice cream in a bag with ice so it would make it home. Who does that? No one. It was most appreciated not only by me but Maharani who will enjoy her vanilla later tonight.
3.265 stars
(horrible song but the title…)