Sitting in a courtyard at an umbrella-covered picnic table, savoring a cool beverage, watching a small-town baseball game on the ballfield next door, listening to the artist currently known as Keith sail effortlessly through pop-rock classics like “Let It Be” and “Summer in the City”... That was me last Thursday in Bethany, at Billy’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream & Marketplace, and it was a reminder that some of life’s greatest pleasures are also its simplest.
Keith’s main gig is singing at Woodbridge’s Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Assumption. On this occasion, he welcomed one of the baseball coaches as a special guest performer. “Sometimes his father-in-law will get up and sing with him,” Billy’s co-owner Vanessa Cerilli noted.
I found this scene bucolic despite the fact that Billy’s sits along busy Route 63, an artery connecting New Haven to northern Litchfield County. The restaurant has stood here since 1984 but is greatly changed since its early days. Original owner Bob Kelly ran it as an ice cream parlor, offering frozen confections of all kinds and otherwise filled to the brim with antique and collectible toys. The current owners, Bob and Vanessa Cerilli, acquired the place in 2013 along with her brother and sister-in-law—a partnership that turned out to be unworkable, although together they established Billy’s current identity as a full-service restaurant-plus-ice cream parlor.
In 2020, Bob and Vanessa brought on their son, Adam, as manager, riding out the pandemic due to robust takeout business and an acquisition of the courtyard property, which enabled customers to dine more safely onsite. Vanessa insists that it’s really Adam who’s “the backbone of the business,” planning the restaurant’s daily specials and putting up its best finery for holidays while maintaining Billy’s friendly vibe. “He works really hard, and I’m just amazed at how he took the reins of the business during COVID and kept it on its feet,” she says. “Everybody just loves him. He is my hero.”
Billy’s regular menu, though not extensive, offers everything from egg sandwiches and Belgian waffles to burgers, “funky” dogs, salads and finger foods. Though liquor isn’t served, diners are welcome to BYOB. There’s also an ambitious, seasonal list of daily specials, including homemade soups. Though tiny, the restaurant is airy and bright (and super clean thanks to Bob, who Vanessa says “is anal about that”). It’s also filled with family- and child-friendly decorative touches like a coin-operated “kiddie car” in place since Billy’s first opened; an overhead operating toy train that runs on tracks rounding the ice cream parlor perimeter; and a giant painted nutcracker. Live music is a newer addition, growing from one night to two nights a week in the past year.
I’ve long been a fan of Billy’s sandwiches, particularly the Big Boy BLT ($12), which is loaded with so much Applewood bacon that it feels like more than a meal. All sandwiches are served with your choice of fries (crinkle-cut white or sweet potato), potato salad, tater tots, onion rings or coleslaw. Alas, my all-time favorite, the Southern Comfort ($11), is no longer on the regular menu, though maybe you can get it if you ask. Made from succulent pork tenderloin dressed with caramelized onions, sauteed spinach, blue cheese crumbles and homemade apple butter, I found it a melt-in-the-mouth treat, but apparently it’s a little too exotic to catch on with the regulars.
Fortunately, that’s not the case with this summer’s hot Lobster Roll special ($28)—with fries and homemade slaw on the side—which has been a runaway success, even though, as Vanessa puts it, “people don’t automatically associate Bethany with the shoreline.” Nonetheless, the overstuffed beauty I ordered was as good as any I’ve had by the water, served on a hot dog roll with a cup of “add your own” searing-hot melted butter.
I’d never had a salad at Billy’s, so I took the plunge. Though the regular selection was tempting, featuring garden, beet, Caesar and Caprese options ($9-$11)—which you can top with grilled chicken, steak, crab cake or veggie burger—I chose another special, the Taco Salad ($16) with ground beef. It was a tasty, satisfying feast of fresh greens, black beans, corn, cheddar cheese and grape tomatoes with spicy vinaigrette on the side. Set in a melamine bowl, it was topped with a crispy taco shell boat conveying the ground beef.
Billy’s sweets, from baked goods to ice cream, are the only items that aren’t (typically) made in-house. With a few exceptions—brownies, muffins and Vanessa’s homemade anginettes—dessert items are provided by nearby purveyors like Kathy’s Famous Cookies from Milford and The Big Dipper’s ice cream from Prospect. There’s a staggering choice of up to 35 daily hard ice cream flavors, including even a vegan chocolate chip, and soft serve chocolate and vanilla, used also in the parlor’s ice cream cakes ($15-$50) and sandwiches ($2 each, $8 for 6). Other dressed-up options include ice cream floats ($6), milkshakes and malts ($7 & $7.25); sundaes ($6.25-$7); and more elaborate treats like brownies à la mode and banana splits (both $8.50).
Billy’s splits come with three scoops of ice cream—my choices were banana walnut chip, butter pecan and salted caramel—as well as a choice of hot fudge or caramel, strawberries, pineapple, walnuts, cherries, plenty of whipped cream and the requisite banana. Yes, I ate the whole thing (though I turned down the pineapple), and no, I had absolutely no regrets, though next time I might go lighter with a selection of sorbets provided by Buck’s Ice Cream of Milford, available in raspberry, mango, coconut and lemon—perhaps a few more of the many pleasures to be found at Billy’s.
Written and photographed by Patricia Grandjean.
