Its seems that the new Chilly Willy’s ice cream and food restaurant is now fully open. It is located at the site of Clancy’s Diner that then became the Barryville Kitchen and Creamery at the junction of Routes 97 and 55. It appears to be another successful business that is owned by the Brown Brothers (Ian and Eric) who have recently opened the very popular River’s Edge Restaurant in the old Carriage House location across the road from Chilly Willy’s.  I went down when it first opened about a week ago and they were only serving ice cream (soft serve and six flavors of hard ice cream,) with a lot of candy toppings and milkshakes and floats. The former restaurant had built a lot of comfortable and covered outside seating so its pleasant to sit outside there. In the name of research for this column and because it was blazing hot, I had a cone. As of this week Chilly Willy’s has added some food items to their menu- with selections my mother always referred to as “walking around food” meaning they aren’t serving any green vegetables! They do have cheeseburgers, double cheeseburgers, chicken fingers with fries-all around $9.00, Veggie burger $6.00, Hot dogs both beef and veggie $4.00. You can try a chili cheese dog for $6.00. For French fries- plain are $3.00, chili cheese are $5.00 and loaded fries are $6.00. Then you can get a lobster roll for $18.00! As with the Rivers Edge Restaurant, Chilly Willy’s has a lot of staff so everyone is very laid back and outgoing and friendly. The menu is family friendly and very reasonably priced and it’s a nice comfortable setting.  Chilly Willy’s is open seven days a week during the summer and the hours are Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday noon-8pm, Friday and Saturday 11-10pm and Sunday 11-8pm. Chilly Willy’s does have a Facebook site you can check out and you can call then at 845-456-3030. Chilly Willy’s is a great addition to Barryville and a mecca for campers and families. The food is good so give it a try!

I ran into Joseph, the husband of my friend Chere-The Egg Lady. He had some bad news. Apparently, a fox got into their chicken coop by digging down under their coop and killed all of her fourteen beautiful chickens. Chere has blue Andalusians, Cuckoo Marans and Ameraucana breeds which she loved and the coop had looked pretty sturdy and well maintained to me, but I guess a hungry fox is a determined critter. Chere has kept chickens since she was a kid growing up in Pennsylvania. To add to Chere’s issues, she recently underwent surgery so she cannot have anything to do with rebuilding her chickens for now she said. It’s going to be sometime before she has another flock going. She told me that because of the bird flu you cannot buy any pullets (chickens with feathers that are four-six weeks old) and can only buy peeps that are a day old and get shipped out immediately, and they won’t be able to lay eggs for at least six months. So, no eggs from Chere until around Christmas time. I guess the whole raising chickens certainly has its ups and downs and isn’t as easy as it looks. All my best thoughts to Chere and Joseph.