Van Meter Tropical Sno receives first 10 spoon rating

Now that’s a headline.  And you won’t read it anywhere else.

Friday afternoon my sister Emily came to our house to spend some time with us since she didn’t have to work.

We decided to give the newly opened Tropical Sno in Van Meter a try.  Special thanks to the Prairie Princess for alerting us to this location.  It’s much, much closer to my home than was the forty mile round-tripper Jett and I pulled last week just for Tropical Sno.  Now slightly embarrassing to admit to.

I’m pleased as punch to announce that the Van Meter location is my first official 10 spoon visit of the season.

If there are any of you in the west surrounding communities of Des Moines that have a hankerin’ for some TS, you’ll not be disappointed visiting this easily accessed, minutes from Interstate 80, convenient location.  Just take the Van Meter exit, follow the road towards town, and you’ll see it immediately upon entering town.

The hours of this Tropical Sno stand are 3 pm – 8 pm, Monday thru Saturday.

We didn’t know of the hours of operation prior to arriving, which was approximately 10 minutes before 3 pm.  No worries, the owner/operator was happy to open early and begin serving that delicious shave(d) ice.  Bonus points.

We were delighted to find an easy-to-read  comprehensive list of not only the syrups they have, but also fun combination “recipes” of those flavors.  For example, the Bart Simpson contains blue raspberry and lemon syrup, the Barney has grape and lime.  Cute, yes?

We just so happened to be watching School House Rock videos before going to Tropical Sno, and wouldn’t you know it?  They had a School House Rock flavor!  That was Jude’s immediate choice.  I can’t recall now which flavors were included in the mix.

We ordered for the kids first and helped them eat theirs before Emily and I ordered.  We found the seating more than adequate.  There was one freshly-painted picnic table located just feet from the stand, but there was also another lovely seating area a few feet from that – a very large flower box with benches for sitting all around.

All of our orders were good ones: Emily got the Georgia Peach, Jude the School House Rock, Jett the Barney and I ordered a Cherry Limeade.  As I ordered, I was chatting up the server (who I quickly discovered was also the entrepreneur); she admitted that she’d never done this kind of thing before, but her Tropical Sno sales representative recommended starting out with their basic, best selling flavors.  I told her she was doing a great job and that I was quite pleased with our visit.  I told her that I am a Tropical Sno connoisseur of sorts and that I have travelled far and wide to sample the creations of her brothers and sisters in the shave(d) ice trade.

I also told her she was receiving the 10-spoon salute from me.  Needless to say, she was very pleased.  Either that or she hit a silent alarm below the counter to summon the police because I was the weirdest, most-enthusiastic-about-Tropical Sno, pregnant freak she’d ever seen.  We decided to take our snoes on the road from there, so I guess we’ll never know.

As an aside, the Iowa Veterans Cemetery entrance is located between the on/off ramps to I-80 and the Tropical Sno; it was a natural choice for us to stop and look around there while we finished our TS treats.  I’d highly recommend doing the same.  The cemetery is not fully completed, but there are memorials and monuments erected that are worth stopping to look at and appreciate.