Ask ten Monmouth County families where to get the best ice cream and you'll start ten friendly arguments. That's fair: this stretch of the Jersey Shore is spoiled for choice. So instead of just declaring a winner, here's the checklist locals actually use to separate truly great ice cream from the merely cold, and where that standard has lived since 1988.
Update, August 2026: The county is weighing in: Ryan's is an official nominee for Best Ice Cream/Frozen Yogurt/Frozen Custard in the 2026 Asbury Park Press Community's Choice Awards. You can vote once a day through August 31 — here's the full story and how to vote.
What "best" actually means
Strip away the neon signs and the ranking lists and great ice cream comes down to a few things you can check on any visit:
- Made on premises. "Homemade" gets printed on a lot of awnings. The real question is whether the ice cream is churned in the building: small batches, made by the people scooping it. (Here's what actually makes ice cream homemade.)
- A board that changes. Small-batch shops rotate: seasonal peach in August, pumpkin in October, peppermint in December. A frozen-in-time menu usually means a frozen-in-a-warehouse product.
- Real mix-ins. Actual brownie chunks, whole candy pieces, fruit you can see. If the cookie dough flavor has real dough in every bite, someone cares.
- Something for everyone. The best shop in the county is the one where the lactose-intolerant kid and the vegan aunt order happily too: dairy-free soft serve, Italian ice, vegan hard scoops.
- Cakes made in-house. Any shop can stock a freezer cake. Watch for hand-decorated ice cream cakes made to order. That's a working kitchen, not a reseller.
Our case for Ryan's
We're biased (it says Ryan's on our awning), but we've also been churning small-batch homemade ice cream in Monmouth County since 1988, and every box above is the standard we hold ourselves to daily. Two dozen flavors made fresh, a board that changes with the seasons, real mix-ins by the handful, plus Italian ice, 100% dairy-free Dole soft serve, and vegan hard flavors so nobody waits outside.
And the cakes are the giveaway that everything happens in-house: custom ice cream cakes, pies, and party cups decorated by hand with 48 hours' notice. You can see this week's work in the photo gallery. Every picture there was taken at our counters, not a stock library.
Easy to get to, wherever you are in the county
From Red Bank, Shrewsbury, Little Silver, or Eatontown, our Tinton Falls shop at 462 Shrewsbury Ave is minutes away. From Asbury Park, Ocean Grove, Deal, or Long Branch, the Oakhurst shop at 1805 Route 35 is the closest scoop. Find directions on the locations page, or check the areas we serve for your town.
What the regulars actually order
Don’t take our word for it — the reviews name names. “Coffee chocolate chip and butter pecan is mint,” writes Brianna Engler, a Google Local Guide reviewing our Tinton Falls shop. “Jersey peach ice cream is amazing,” says Ralph P. on Tripadvisor. And Maureen F. sums up the whole premise: “You’ll know this ice cream is homemade and fresh the minute you taste it.” More of these — all real, all verbatim — live on our reviews page.
A quick tour of the board
The everyday lineup runs two dozen homemade flavors deep. The chocolate wing alone goes from Fudge Brownie to 3X Chocolate to Chocolate Peanut Butter Crunch; the candy shelf brings Reese’s Blast and Fruity Pebbles; classicists get Butter Pecan, Coffee Chip, and Cherry Vanilla. Then the seasonal board rotates through the year — Jersey Peach in late summer, Strawberry Cheesecake, and Elvis, our banana-forward tribute flavor. If you can’t decide, that’s what flights are for.
Run your own taste test
Both shops keep taste-test-friendly hours: Tinton Falls is open daily 11 AM–10 PM at 462 Shrewsbury Ave, and Oakhurst daily 12 PM–10 PM at 1805 Route 35 — which means the after-dinner window is always covered. Bring the pickiest eater you know. Order a flight, a scoop of whatever’s seasonal, and one wildcard the counter recommends. If the “best in Monmouth County” debate survives that experiment, at least everyone argued on a full stomach.
The only test that counts: Rankings are fun, but ice cream is an eating sport. Come try a scoop of whatever's fresh on the board. The first taste settles the argument better than any list.
