Canoga Park soda shop added to ‘Ice Cream Nation’

Here’s something to help get you through a Southern California summer: an ice cream soda in a chocolate-covered mug.

The uniquely served treats at Jerry’s Soda Shoppe in Canoga Park are getting plenty of deliciously good press these days. Not only was the ice cream shop named the best in California in the current issue of Food Network Magazine, but it will be featured at 5 p.m. July 14 by the Cooking Channel as part of the show “Ice Cream Nation.”

The cool creations aren’t what you might expect when you walk into a pharmacy with aisles full of bandages and medicine. Not these days anyways. But this soda fountain, which opened 17 years ago in the DeSoto Pharmacy at 20914 Roscoe Blvd., harks back to an earlier time.

The ice cream sodas — made with a mug dipped in chocolate, whipped cream and Lappert’s vanilla ice cream along with chocolate syrup, seltzer and a cherry — are prominently featured in the July/August 2013 issue of Food Network Magazine. Editor-in-chief Maile Carpenter said the publication “worked with food writers in every state to track down the best of the best” in all 50 states.

DeSoto Pharmacy first opened its doors in 1959 but welcomed Jerry’s in 1996. The Meyers family-owned soda shop wanted to go traditional and do something different, said co-owner David Meyers, who attends Temple Ahavat Shalom in Northridge.