Tiger’s blood, Wedding Cake, Fuzzy Navel, oh my! On March 1, Southern Tropics opened its doors once again to grace Texarkana with its delicious shaved iced. Despite the recent cold weather, many students have already gotten their first few bites of this sweet treat.

This shack on Stateline has been a hot spot for many years for a cool snack during the spring and summer and has become a personal favorite for many people, whether it’s sticking to tradition or chasing after new flavors.

“I get the banana flavored with homemade ice cream in it.” junior Zack Phillips said. “Everybody makes fun of it because I really love bananas and it’s the only one I ever get. It’s the best shaved ice ever.”

Junior Julia Nations also tends to be a creature of habit when it comes to selecting her shaved ice flavor.

“I’ve been going to Southern Tropics just for the past year and my favorite snow cone to get has to be [the] ice cream snow cone with added cream,” Nations said. “I know it’s super sweet but it tastes like the best ice cream you’ll ever have.”

Southern Tropics offers lots of options so that you can even get a snow cone with one of their homemade ice cream pops in the middle, add whipped cream, sweetened-condensed cream, or thick cream, shots of sour flavoring, hundreds of flavor combinations, and lots more.

“Sometimes I go up to the big board where all the flavors are listed and I close my eyes, put two fingers on the board, swirl them around and when I stop I get the two flavors I landed on.” sophomore Hutch Tidwell said.  “Sometimes the snow cone will rock, but other times I wish I would have just gotten a classic like Tiger’s Blood or something.”

Even when the sun isn’t around and the skies are gray, or when the temperature is so low the shaved ice won’t melt, Southern Tropics delivers its sugary delights for its faithful customers.

“I’ve already gotten lots of snow cones,” Anna Catherine Boudreaux said. “Even if the line looks long, it’s worth the wait.”