Buck’s Soft Serve

Buckle Up, a Storm’s a’Comin’
Buck’s Soft Serve, Woodstock
September 2026

Does a soft serve ice cream place deserve a spot on the CTMQ Homemade Ice Cream Trail?

No. Not at all. “Making” soft serve is very different from our creameries that make their own real ice cream. And yet…

Here we are. Deep, and I mean deep in the northwoods of Connecticut at Buck’s Soft Serve in Woodstock. I don’t feel I need to justify why I’m including Buck’s, but I will tell you this: I visited at 3:15, shortly after opening, on a Friday. Buck’s is not near anything.

There were at least a dozen other customers there. Several were clearly there right at three when they opened. A steady stream of cars continued to turn into the unimproved dirt lot during my visit. Granted, at least one customer wasn’t there for ice cream, but more on what she was buying in a minute.

Buck’s is obviously very successful and has their own thing going on.

And that thing is the Nor’easter; a play on Dairy Queen’s Blizzard. The difference is… there’s not really a difference other than the unreal number of Nor’Easter options available, which change seasonally and, apparently, on the rather frequent creative whims of the owners.

To add to my personal fun, I visited here the day before a 3-day forecasted nor’easter!

But let’s get back to the owners for a minute. Who would open an ice cream place out here and how did they make it become so successful?

Judy Buell and Emilie Hebert were both born and raised on Connecticut farmland. They met one another through mutual friends and bonded on shared experience. Their got older, they got bored, and landed on an idea after visiting a soft serve symposium in New Hampshire. (That’s according to a newspaper article and it’s funny to me that it sounds like they just accidently wound up at a soft serve symposium in New Hampshire.)

Owner Judy’s husband had some land that was owned by his grandfather, one Mr. Harvey Buck. Judy is a Woodstock native and Emilie is from Hampton. So these are farmer women who know rural Connecticut and the value of hard work. They went to the symposium, got the equipment needed and the town permits, and opened in May of 2018.

Interestingly, they and their husbands were quite leery of the location, so they housed their business in a mobile unit. The idea was that they could then move the whole operation to a place where people actually lived and drove. I’m pretty sure the “mobility” of the place hasn’t been used… ever. They were successful right out of the gate.

Shortly after opening a bare bones operation, people began asking for more options. Buck’s had a couple failed attempts at various mixtures, but then landed on the idea of what is now the Nor’easter. It’s ice cream stacked in a cup with syrup and toppings. Simple and delicious.

Perhaps not so simple, as there are seemingly endless options. Two are eponymous with the owners, so I’d have been a fool to stray from those. The Judy comes with hot fudge, raspberry sauce, and cheesecake bites. The Emilie is chocolate syrup and peanut butter syrup with chopped Reece’s and layered it in ice cream.

Since these things are layered, you get more toppings as you go down, unlike a sundae where, once the toppings are gone on top, you just have plain ice cream more or less.

I ordered the Emilie and poked around. There’s a hominess to this place that you don’t really get at even equally rural ice cream joints in the state. A few do come with the odor of cattle though, which always detracts no matter how good the ice cream. The multitude signs are a mixture of someone gone wild on Canva and handwritten post-it notes. It can be overwhelming to say the least.

They have over 50 different ingredients and, I suppose, hundreds of possible combinations. And shout out to Buck’s for offering gluten, dairy-free, and vegan options as well. If I didn’t know what I wanted before getting here, I’d have been lost. But that’s part of the charm.

Also part of the charm is that they don’t just sell ice cream here. Remember, this is Woodstock. They sell meat. And offal. Right there, right next to your delicious ice cream treats. (Lest you think this isn’t a thing people come here for, a woman loaded up on several different things while I waited for my Nor’easter.)

They also sell other local farm products like maple syrup and such. And if, for some insane reason you forget these are farmers in farm country, there’s a bunch of farm animals on the premises as well. Goats and chickens and rabbits. Parents, bring your wet wipes.

My wait wasn’t long at all. Dang, this thing looked good.

Most of their fruit ingredients are sourced locally, which is a nice feature. You may be familiar with the Buell name as they own Buell’s in this neck of the woods. Additionally, Judy owns a commercial kitchen in Hampton where they bake the crisps and things for their Nor’easters. They bake in the mornings and sling soft serve in the afternoons.

My Emilie Nor’easter tasted as good as it looked. Sure, soft serve takes the backseat to hard ice cream every time, but perhaps not in this format. These Nor’easter things are the perfect vehicle for soft serve vanilla ice cream.

I think I’ve justified including a soft serve spot on my list of Connecticut homemade ice cream shops. Two salt-of-the-earth women got together and built a successful business in the hinterlands of Woodstock with pluck, skill, and creativity. Oh, and deliciousness. Lots of deliciousness.

The background information above is from a 2021 Norwich Bulletin article by Blaine Callahan.

Buck’s Soft Serve Facebook page
CTMQ’s Homemade Ice Cream Trail