Heladería Lares

"An Ice Cream Revolution in Lares The Heladería de Lares, a 45-year-old family business, sells about 50 unusual flavors of ice cream up in the mountains. Salvador Berreto, known to the locals as Yinyo, founded the shop to commemorate the Grito de Lares, a battle for freedom that had taken place exactly one century before. Yinyo started with corn, a flavor at the heart of the Puerto Rican diet and the current bestseller. Other flavors are cod, coquito (the Puerto Rican version of eggnog), and rice and beans. Fortunately, you can taste two flavors before deciding what to buy, and the ice cream is cheap, so you can stock up. Every weekend, people form what locals like to call lines, but are really boisterous blobs extending half a block down from the shop's entrance. While eating, people skim through newspaper clips about when Denise Quiñones, a girl from Lares, won a Miss Universe pageant, or study photos of the 1945 Fuego de la Candelaria (a fire in Lares). After reading about the history behind Lares's anthem and running their hands over the guiro (a musical instrument played by scraping its serrated surface), people often wander outside to the Plaza de la Revolucion. Here, on a typical Sunday, artisans sell paintings of the three magi (the Puerto Ricans' second Santa) and of flamboyanes (the national trees with orange flowers). If you have doubts as to whether it's worth it, just ask Bill Clinton and his daughter Chelsea. In 2008, Clinton forced $100 into the hands of Yinyo's son for a mango ice cream."

"An Ice Cream Revolution in Lares The Heladería de Lares, a 45-year-old family business, sells about 50 unusual flavors of ice cream up in the mountains. Salvador Berreto, known to the locals as Yinyo, founded the shop to commemorate the Grito de Lares, a battle for freedom that had taken place exactly one century before. Yinyo started with corn, a flavor at the heart of the Puerto Rican diet and the current bestseller. Other flavors are cod, coquito (the Puerto Rican version of eggnog), and rice and beans. Fortunately, you can taste two flavors before deciding what to buy, and the ice cream is cheap, so you can stock up. Every weekend, people form what locals like to call lines, but are really boisterous blobs extending half a block down from the shop's entrance. While eating, people skim through newspaper clips about when Denise Quiñones, a girl from Lares, won a Miss Universe pageant, or study photos of the 1945 Fuego de la Candelaria (a fire in Lares). After reading about the history behind Lares's anthem and running their hands over the guiro (a musical instrument played by scraping its serrated surface), people often wander outside to the Plaza de la Revolucion. Here, on a typical Sunday, artisans sell paintings of the three magi (the Puerto Ricans' second Santa) and of flamboyanes (the national trees with orange flowers). If you have doubts as to whether it's worth it, just ask Bill Clinton and his daughter Chelsea. In 2008, Clinton forced $100 into the hands of Yinyo's son for a mango ice cream."

"Beat the Sun with Tasty Treats The sun can shine relentlessly in Puerto Rico , but you can beat the heat with cool sweets. If you’re staying in town, your best bet is a piragua (shaved ice with a syrup of your choice) from a plaza vendor's cart. But if you’re escaping the city and you have the chance, stop by the town of Lares for a visit to the Heladería Lares. This local institution is a source of great pride, serving up unique ice cream flavors like corn, garlic, and cod. (More traditional scoops are also available, such as vanilla and chocolate.) Make sure to take a moment and check out the shop's walls, which are covered in old photographs and newspaper clippings about the town."

"Heladeria Lares is an old-school ice cream shop right on the town square in Lares, site of a famous anti-Spanish uprising in the 19th century. It opened in 1968 and is still run by the same family, and there are upwards of 50 flavors from which to choose on any given day. There's a reason the shop has been open for more than 50 years, as if its inventive flavors—rice and beans, pumpkin, sesame seed—predicted the kind of hipster ice cream that only recently arrived in Brooklyn." - Alicia Kennedy