Homemade Mexican-style popsicles and more at new Oak Ridge store
Tucked next to Oak Ridge’s Staples is a new shop with ice cream, popsicles, nachos and more.
La Real Michoacana, a Mexican-style frozen treat and snack bar, opened at 851 Main Street West.
The owner, Maria Torres, said while other businesses including in Knoxville bear the name “Michoacana,” her business is not part of a franchise.
The name refers to the Mexican state of Michoacán, and Torres said Hispanic people tend to associate the name with specific kinds of frozen treats.
La Real Michoacana has a variety of paletas, which refers to popsicle-style bars on sticks, often including slices of fruit.
“Obviously it’s something new, but not a lot of people here are familiar with them,” Torres said regarding her homemade style of popsicles. They come in smaller sizes for children.
For people wanting other types of cold treats, the store offers nieves or ice cream cones.
La Real Michoacana has made a deal with Blue Bell to add additional scoop flavors while still keeping several in-house ones.
Customers can also have sundaes, banana splits, yogurt with fruit, strawberries and cream, or a fruit cup.
Cold drinks include mango, strawberry and limeade flavors, milkshakes prepared monster energy drink varieties, and less-sweetened aguas frescas including cucumber and hibiscus flavors.
Savory snacks at La Real Michoacana are casual but distinctive, including sandwich combos but also cheesy nachos, chips with shrimp and avocado, two styles of flavored corn, flavored pork rinds, ramen noodles or just hot Cheetos with cheese among other items.
“It’s a lot of combinations that you wouldn’t think about creating,” Torres said. “We’re not just based on the ice cream and the paletas, we’re just also based on all the different snacks that we offer,” she said, explaining that as a difference from other Oak Ridge ice cream and frozen treat places, of which there are several including the local Razzleberry’s Ice Cream Lab and Kitchen and the national Baskin Robbins.
Torres described the menu as focusing on “Mexican snacks that a lot of Hispanics know about.
“We decided Oak Ridge because we needed something with this type of snacks,” she said, pointing to the city’s large Hispanic community. “We wanted something like that for them so that they wouldn’t have to drive to Knoxville or other places where there’s more.”
“Everybody is so happy, so glad that we open one here in this town,” she said regarding the Michoacana style of restaurant. “They just feel closer to home or their Hispanic roots coming in. They feel like a place for them where they can come, get all the snacks.
“They know about it because all of this they also sell in Mexico,” she said. “Just because of the fact that they’re able to get it here, it makes them feel like home.”
She also described the store as a good place for teenagers to hang out during lunch breaks or after school.
She also singled out the strawberries and cream and the mangonada mango drink, which has ice cream, mango cubes and spices as popular.
“All that together makes it a good combination and very refreshing,” she said of the mangonada.