Give me a Cool! Give me a Flames! Give me a Café! What have you got? A friendly, family-owned spot, opened last spring in Norfolk’s Best Square, sporting a curious name. But check it out, and you’ll see that the moniker Cool Flames Café is a shout-out to its triptych of a menu.
First comes the cool, depicted in blue letters, for homemade ice cream and milkshakes, not to mention a chill vibe. Flames, in red, refers to the boldly-flavored pizza and wings. Finally, café, in yellow, nods to bubble teas (boba) and coffees. It’s a place teeming with delicious, fun food and drink, and an exuberant spirit to support its motto painted on the wall in cursive: “Bringing community together.”
Make that communities. One Friday afternoon, over the course of an hour, I encountered Hispanics, Indians, Ukrainians, Navy vets, fashion models and preschoolers in a beautiful array of colors – black, white, brown, cinnamon, mocha – as if complementing the spectrum of thirty-some ice cream flavors…