The Cone

The Cone runs on a short list of decisions, and the first one was the dairy. Everything in the case comes from Kawartha Dairy, the Ontario maker the owners tied the whole menu to when the shop opened, rather than spreading across several suppliers. From there the format stays just as lean: a seasonal, family-run scoop window in Orillia's north end, a board of named flavours, and a handful of ways to order them. The plain banana scoop makes the case fastest — served with nothing dressed up around it, it became the flavour local reporting singled out as an early favourite, and it proves that a good dairy base can carry a whole visit without a single topping.

The flavour board runs deeper than that first banana suggests. Salty Caramel Truffle brings the richest, most caramel-forward edge of the lineup, and Pralines and Cream answers it with a softer, nuttier counterpoint pulled from the same case — the pairing to reach for when two people are sharing. Butterscotch Ripple, Death by Chocolate, and Moose Tracks hold down the nostalgic middle, while Cotton Candy and a rotating seasonal such as Pumpkin Pie Wizard show a board willing to move with the calendar. Beyond the cones sit chocolate milkshakes and handmade ice cream cakes for the occasions when a single scoop is being asked to do more. The dipped cone bars are a more recent addition, carrying four of those same Kawartha flavours in a firmer, hand-held form. It is a compact menu that still leaves a table of three or four people no trouble finding four different orders.

The way the visit runs is as considered as the flavours. Ordering happens at one of two outdoor windows, and there is nowhere inside to sit — the whole design is walk up, order, and carry it off. That reads as intent rather than shortfall. A short menu sent quickly through a window is easier to run well than a floor of tables, and it keeps the exchange where a neighbourhood scoop shop wants it: a fast, friendly handoff before the cone has any chance to soften. Regulars learn the rhythm quickly, and the second window means a warm-evening lineup tends to keep moving instead of stalling. Repeat visits reward a glance at the board before defaulting to the usual, since the seasonal slots rotate through the year.

The shop is the work of Stewart McNeely and Barb Hollyer, who opened it in 2025 and, by their own account in local reporting, kept the plan deliberately small from the start. The single-dairy decision belongs to that same instinct: pick the supplier you trust, build the whole menu on it, and let consistency carry the visits that novelty carries elsewhere. It is a family operation in the plainest sense — the owners are the concept and the service both, which is why the moment at the window tends to feel personal rather than transactional.

None of this asks to be more than it is. The ice cream cakes give the shop a real role in birthdays and end-of-season gatherings, the kind of order worth arranging a few days ahead rather than hoping on arrival. The seasonal calendar means the windows open with the warm months and close with them, so a visit is tied to a particular stretch of the Orillia year rather than available on demand. For a shop only a season or two old, The Cone already knows what it is: less a destination than the north-end stop you make on the walk home, cone in hand, while the light over Laclie Street is still long.