Chapter 7

ACCOLADES FROM NEAR AND FAR

Since the very first radio spot about Four Seas Ice Cream aired on a Canadian radio station in the 1940s, the seventy-seven-year-old Centerville ice cream store has received accolades and attention from across the country. Celebrity sightings helped put the store on the map, but well-respected publications from across the region, as well as across the country, helped cement Four Seas as a favorite ice cream store for those traveling from a few miles away or a few hundred miles away.

Locally, Four Seas is synonymous with the sweet treat. Just a couple of months after the Canadian radio broadcast about Four Seas, a reporter at the local daily newspaper, the Cape Cod Standard Times, as it was known then, wrote a glowing article about the store. Coincidentally, the reporter had worked at Four Seas Ice Cream as a teen and was eager to share her experience. But since then, dozens of articles have been written about the store in the newspaper, now known as the Cape Cod Times, and other local magazines. For over a decade, Four Seas has been named the best ice cream by Cape Cod Life magazine. And further, Boston publications have been recognizing Four Seas as having some of the best ice cream in the region as well. The “Phantom Gourmet,” an anonymous reviewer who makes the rounds in New England both in numerous books and on a weekly television show, called Four Seas “the Greatest” ice cream parlor on the Cape and had this to say about the store:

Four Seas is a darling soda shoppe with parlor chairs, swivel stools, old-fashioned dipping cabinets, and blue flower boxes outside. They have the longest-running ice cream tradition on the Cape…made with an awesome sixteen percent butterfat content and very low overrun. They refuse to top their superior scoops with cheap jimmies, but who cares when you can load up on homemade sauces like butterscotch, blackberry brandy, or crème de menthe. Four Seas is even responsible for inventing several flavors like chip chocolate, penuche pecan, and cantaloupe.

One of the many paintings that have been done of Four Seas over the years. This one shows the tradition of neighborhood kids showing up as early as 6:00 a.m. on opening day to be the first ones in line to get free cones. Courtesy of Joan Scudder.

In 2005, Boston magazine recognized Four Seas as the best ice cream in the region, naming several of its flavors their favorites and praising the store’s help, too. “It doesn’t get sweeter than Four Seas, where flavor favorites include lemon crisp and peach, and homemade toppings range from melba sauce to crème de menthe. Best of all: You can eat your treat knowing your tips are put toward college funds for employees, all of whom are required by the owner to maintain good grades.”

But it hasn’t been just local publications that have recognized Four Seas as one of the best ice cream stores in the country. In 1998, USA Today named Four Seas the seventh-best ice cream in the country. In the article, Rick Sebak, an ice cream reviewer and producer of the PBS documentary An Ice Cream Show, which extensively featured the store, said Four Seas was “the best total experience of all [ice cream places] I’ve visited” and praised the lobster salad sandwich as “dynamite.” And just a year later, in 1999, the Sunday New York Times wrote a full-length feature article on Four Seas and called its product “indisputably delicious.”

In 2000, Fox News Channel featured Four Seas during a Fourth of July broadcast called “Celebrating Summer with Four Seas Ice Cream,” where it took a tour of the store, chatted with customers and sampled a few flavors. “There’s a sure-fire way to tell it’s summer on Cape Cod: Four Seas Ice Cream is open for business,” the broadcast stated.

In 2003, People magazine hosted a lighthearted tasting contest featuring sixteen handpicked favorite ice cream stores. Various flavors were reviewed by celebrated chef Rocco DiSpirito, food writers Jane and Michael Stern, Homer Simpson of the Fox cartoon show The Simpsons, Spy Kids stars Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara and Penn State University Creamery head Tom Palchak. The panel rated Four Seas three “scoops” out of five.

Food-centric magazines have also taken notice of Four Seas’ high-quality ingredients and scrupulous production. Gourmet magazine featured Four Seas as one of its favorite places in 1998, and Food and Wine magazine twice recognized Four Seas as one of the best ice cream producers in the United States. In 1983, Food and Wine praised Four Seas with these words:

Knowledgeable visitors to New England are apt to detour many miles to visit an irresistible attraction in tiny Centerville, Massachusetts, an unspoiled Cape Cod town just outside of Hyannis on Nantucket Sound. The Four Seas Ice Cream Store, located in what was the village smithy’s shop, is owned and operated by a local high school guidance counselor, Dick Warren. From just before Memorial Day to just before Labor day, when Four Seas is open, Warren makes his superb ice creams in a single freezer in the back of the store. Although the rich and creamy vanilla is the best seller…sundaes of homemade hot fudge on coconut ice cream are another prime treat.

Nearly thirty years later, in 2011, the prestigious magazine again praised Four Seas—including the coconut ice cream—in its list of the “Best Ice Cream Spots in the U.S.”

In 1998, competitor Gourmet magazine also recognized Four Seas in a lengthy write-up by the Sterns, known food writers and authors of the “Roadfood” series and website:

Born Loser creator Art Sansom, a huge Four Seas Ice Cream fan, has written many comics about the store, including this one, 2011.

The sundaes are a delight: claret sauce on chocolate ice cream is our undoing. Frappes are expertly blended. And there is one non-ice-cream item we need to note, the perfectly proportioned lobster salad. But the pride of Four Seas are the cones: small (one generous globe); large (one extra-big conical scoop), or double (two globes); the last is the maximum amount of ice cream any ordinary-sized cone can bear. The cone, of course, is the perfect ice-cream delivery system, allowing folks to eat on the stroll without cumbersome utensils, and also obviating interference from sauce, nuts, cherries, or whipped cream. This is not to impugn fudge or marshmallow cream, it’s just that Four Seas ice cream is worth savoring with no adornment. It’s honest and pure, luxurious but not ridiculously rich. This is ice cream you want to eat every night, all summer long.

Travel + Leisure magazine echoed Gourmet’s choice of Four Seas as one of the best ice cream shops in America in a 2008 article that said it was “the place for Kennedy sightings.”