Saugatuck Sweets overflows with enough treats to make you feel like, well, a kid in a candy store.
Even one step inside and you’re awash in color. Gleaming white-tile countertops are canvases for pops of color from lollipops and frosting. Bulk candies, like sour cherries and Haribo gummies, dominate the right wall in a rainbow of hues. Don’t be surprised if you come in for a cone and leave with a bagful of sweets (which, heads up, you just might polish off in one sitting).
Husband-and-wife-team Al and Chris DiGuido know their sweets. At thirteen, Al slung egg creams as a soda jerk in Brooklyn. Chris worked at the original Great Cakes on the Post Road when they first moved to town twenty-five years ago. When Saugatuck Craft Butchery relocated across the street, the duo partnered with Westport engineer Pete Romano to fill the vacant space with this shop—and it’s miles beyond your average ice cream stop.
The hard ice cream by Longford’s Own-Made, based out of Port Chester, is out of this world. “We get deliveries of their ice cream twice a week,” Al says. “We’re never more than three days from when they actually make it.” You can taste the freshness in the dreamy caramel sea salt, the best-selling flavor. A salty, velvety caramel swirl balances the richness of sweet cream.
Overhead signs tantalize with more offerings, like pies and ice-cream floats. An espresso nugget milkshake—coffee ice cream tempered with a hint of bitterness from chocolate-covered espresso candies—is the perfect indulgence, paired, thankfully, with an extra-wide straw.
The sandwiches, sundaes and other food specials have a uniquely Westport twist. The Manny Special (a scoop of ice cream sandwiched by warm chocolate-chip cookies) was dreamed up by a former chef at Staples. The Pig’s Trough sundae, thirty scoops plus a piggy-portion of toppings, was pulled from the 1956 menu of a Post Road ice cream parlor. “No one’s ordered that yet,” Al laughs. “But a lot of people are threatening.”
“Families come with their kids and spend time here,” Al says. “It’s gotten to be a real community, which is something we always dreamed would happen.”
Saugatuck Sweets
575 Riverside Avenue, 203-642-4615