Missing AJ's

Stopped in at the Berkey Creamery at Penn State again over the weekend, and it got me thinking about the late, great AJ’s, which was on the campus of VCU during my time there in the mid-1980s.

Of course, the Creamery is a must-stop for a lot of folks when they are in State College. The lines can be legendary, which is why they must enforce rules similar to those of the “Seinfield” Soup Nazi to keep it moving. There are usually two dozen flavors available, and a cone or cup costs $3.25 these days, while a milkshake is $4. You tell the person at the cash register what you want, he or she repeats it back and then you pay, and go to the dipping station, where they will find the appropriate person to complete your order. It’s all fairly efficient.

And the ice cream is outstanding. They say it’s less than 24 hours from the cow to the cone. If I may recommend a flavor, I would say the Chocolate Chocolate Nut, which was called Palmer Mooseum with Nuts the first time I stopped in the old Creamery in 2004.

Mixing flavors is not allowed at the Penn State Creamery, and only one person has been successful in breaking that rule. President Clinton managed to get strawberry and Peachy Paterno in one order, according to legend. Contrast that to the Michigan State creamery, where they will mix flavors and the line backs up accordingly.

And contrast that to the chief charm of AJ’s, which was the mixing in of nuts, cookies, candy bars and all other kinds of matter on a cutting board. Today, Cold Stone Creamery does that everywhere, but 30 years ago it was the kind of radical thing you’d only find in places like Georgetown.

When I got to VCU in 1983, AJ’s was in the lower level of some building on Grace Street, half a block down from a Haagen-Dazs store that was right on the corner with Shaffer Street. I probably frequented that store for a while before I had heard enough about AJ’s to check it out.

What Cold Stone does these days was called a personalized cup at AJ’s. They started with ice cream made fresh in the store earlier in the day. One of the best flavors was Coffee Oreo, which actually negated the need to get a personalized cup. Occasionally, you could find an entire Oreo in the middle of a cone, although they usually chopped them up fairly well.

Eventually, the Haagen-Dazs closed and AJ’s took its spot at the corner of Grace and Shaffer. It was a good place to slip away in the middle of my photojournalism class on Wednesdays. After all, there is only so much you can do in a five-hour class.

AJ’s eventually opened a location at Cloverleaf Mall around the time I moved to Luray, and I’m not sure when it disappeared from there or campus. If I had to guess, it was sometime in the 1990s.

That wasn’t the first time a Richmond ice cream institution disappeared. I still remember moving to the city in 1971 and Dad taking us to the Clover Room on

Broad Street

.

While many of these places come and go, others, like the Berkey Creamery, endure. Just make sure you know what you want when you get to the counter.