Our First Dessert Walking Tour

As we were on our southward journey home, we stopped over near Savannah for a week. We had some comp days from a reservation earlier in the year that fell through, so we decided to use them this month.

We have been to Savannah a few times before and done the trolley tour, self-guided tours, and just wandered the streets. This time, we wanted to do something different.

A fellow traveler recommended trying a food walking tour, especially in new locations, to get the lay of the land, learn some history and have some delicious nibbles. So, we did a search online and Viator seemed to be a great company to work with. A nice bonus is that you earn credit towards future tours for every tour you book!

With a picky 13-year-old and my food allergies, the higher priced food walking tours didn’t seem like the best thing for us. But we did find a dessert tour that appealed to the family sweet tooth, and our budget! (the tour name and all businesses we visited will be italicized for quick reference, if you are interested in finding them!)

We opted for the Southern Flavors of Savannah Walking Dessert Tour for a Monday night, and turned out to have the tour all to ourselves. We paid the non-refundable fare online and got our confirmation with meet up time and location, and told our guide would reach out the day of. Here’s a link to the website and tour page for the Southern Flavors of Savannah Walking Dessert Tour, or you can go to the website to search for other locations, or other tours!

Our tour guide, Christina, reached out via text midday Monday. Since it was just us on the tour, it wasn’t going to be a full 3 hours, and we were dodging rain.

Our tour started at 5PM, so to avoid traffic, we headed over a couple of hours early, grabbing coffee at Nine Line down by the river, a must-do every time! Then we explored for a quick dinner to cushion all the sugar we were sure to have. Our son opted for a sausage roll from the Pie Society (we forgot to grab a photo!) and BJ and I decided to grab some pizza slices at Vinnie Van Go-Go’s.

We headed over to meet our guide and set off. We thought we’d be trying 3 different places, but she told us it was going to be 6. We braced ourselves for the sugar high and were glad for the walking tour. Christina dazzled us with history of the town’s establishment and tidbits of history and memorable people and places as we wandered the squares while the sun quietly set.

Our first stop was a Locally Made Savannah for cookie monster ice cream cups. This shop was designed to showcase the local creative souls of Savannah, so is full of lots of items made by small businesses. And the ice cream cups were delish!

Next, we headed over to The Peach Cobbler Factory and tried their peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream. Neither of the boys are peach or cobbler fans, but tried it. I love a good peach cobbler, and finished it off, with the realization, I may need to pace myself!

Our third stop of the tour was to 22 SQ Restaurant where we were treated to a lemon tart dessert. It was definitely out of our usual wheelhouse, but BJ and I both enjoyed it, although I stuck to the tart filling (allergies and unsure on ingredients). It was the perfect level of sweet, but not too much!

Fourth on our tour, was Paula Dean’s Restaurant, Lady & Sons for two different desserts. Luther and I enjoyed her southern banana pudding and BJ had an ooey gooey butter cake, since he isn’t a banana pudding fan. Both were delicious, with that perfect level of being sweet, but not too sweet! We had hoped we would luck out and it would be a day she was there, since she tends to pop by from time to time. No such luck, but we grabbed a photo with her cardboard cut out!

Our 5th stop was at River Street Sweets where the boys had pralines and I got truffles and a chocolate covered pretzel, since I have a tree nut allergy. Luther had never had a praline and found he really liked them–may be on our future list of things to try making for him! BJ loves pralines and devoured his. The boys also got a handful of lemonheads (Luther) and a divinity candy (BJ) for later. I think they made it home and to the next day! We also squeezed in a quick stop by Byrd’s Famous Cookies for a friendly hello, and got to enjoy a lemon cooler, key lime cooler, a cheddar pecan, although I took a bite and realized it had nuts in it, so did not finish it–totally my fault for missing it and we had just been talking about my pepper allergy, so she was focused on avoiding that–oops! I did pop an allergy pill after, just in case–luckily I don’t have an extreme allergy from that one bite and I spit it out. I was bummed since it was really good! And, due to the excitement, we forgot to get photos.

Our final stop of the light was one we had visited before, Leopold’s Ice Cream. This shop has the old mahogany bar, employees dressed as the old-fashioned soda jerks, and movie decor on every wall. Usually the line is around the block, but we were in luck tonight–although since it’s a tour, we get to walk right in anyway! The boys had their butter pecan and I enjoyed my favorite flavor–mint chocolate chip. The ice creams are smooth, perfectly sweet, and I love that the mint wasn’t overly minty.

After nearly 3 hours of walking, and managing to dodge most of the rain drops, we completed our tour with full stomachs and a slight sugar high. Unexpectedly, since we had small portions, the heavier flavors at the start of the tour, and did a lot of walking, we weren’t overly full.

I would definitely recommend taking one of these tours, whether in Savannah, or any other location. It will definitely be something we look for in the future, and of course will share with you!