Location: 1167 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: http://hollywoodcone.com/

Hollywood Cone is basically a superior version of Sweet Jesus — they have a similar selection of social-media-friendly cones, along with other Instagram-bait creations like elaborate milkshakes topped with entire doughnuts or slices of pie.

The quality of the ice cream itself is a solid upgrade over Sweet Jesus.  And yet the place seems to be struggling to attract customers — go figure.  On this particular day, I was actually intending to get a scoop from Bang Bang, but the line-up was intense, even by their standards.   Meanwhile, Hollywood Cone (which is just a few blocks away) was a ghost town.

I ordered the Salted Caramel Skor (well, technically I ordered something else and they gave me the wrong thing — but I couldn’t be bothered to correct them), which comes topped with Skor bits, salted caramel sauce, and a chocolate drizzle.

It’s not bad at all.  The sauces were middle-of-the-road, but the real attraction here is the ice cream.  It’s super creamy and rich, and it lacks the artificial sweetness that you find in lesser soft serve.  It’s really, really good.

Like at Sweet Jesus, their creations are designed to be Instagram-friendly cones instead of the sundaes they’re clearly meant to be, so the toppings run out pretty quickly.  But unlike at Sweet Jesus, the quality of the ice cream is so good that you don’t particularly mind.

It’s odd that the place isn’t doing better than it is, though the aforementioned service issues don’t help, nor does the fact that the place is weirdly dirty and dark, with an atmosphere that feels more like a dive bar than an ice cream shop.