People Visit One Restaurant In California To Complete This Sundae Challenge And Win Free Ice Cream For A Year

If you were the type of kid who loved ice cream so much that you always dove right in and got a brain freeze, you may want to book your next ticket to California. Located 25 miles outside of San Francisco in Walnut Creek, an East Bay shopping haven, the San Francisco Creamery Co. has been serving up its homemade ice cream since 2004. Based on the old-fashioned ice cream parlors of the 1930s and 1940s, this popular restaurant stands apart from the plethora of ice cream shops in Walnut Creek thanks to something called the Kitchen Sink.

Featured on Season 2 of the Travel Channel's "Man v Food," the Kitchen Sink is an enormous sundae featuring eight flavors of ice cream, three bananas, and enough toppings and whipped cream to make anyone's heart content. Advertised as appropriate to serve at large birthday parties, it's also part of something the restaurant calls the Kitchen Sink Challenge. Host Adam Richman passed the challenge by devouring the two gallons of ice cream together with all the toppings in under an hour. Over 15 years later, the rules have changed slightly but the challenge is still the same, complete the sundae in the outlined time and win free ice cream for a year.

So how do you win and get the free ice cream? Currently, in order to win the challenge, the contestant must eat the entire sundae in less than 30 minutes using the provided utensils. To make things even more difficult, if you decide to compete, you may not step away from the table to use the restroom and if you can't hold down the ice cream, you will be disqualified. 

For those brave souls who power through the brain freeze and manage to eat everything, not only will the mammoth sundae be free of charge, but you will be allowed to order one free ice cream daily for a year. Of course, even if you don't want to compete, there are a host of desserts to select from, whether you want a warm brownie sundae or an ice cream float.

While ice cream may be San Francisco Creamery Co.'s signature dish, they also offer a full menu of classic American favorites. Enjoy some mac and cheese, a burger, or chicken pot pie in this nostalgic setting. But really, even if you sit down for a savory meal, the real star of the show is the ice cream, which is all made in-house. "Absolutely fantastic ice cream," writes one happy customer on Yelp. "Normally when you see an ice cream shop that also has full meals, that's not a great sign. But San Francisco Creamery manages to nail it. The ice cream is rich and creamy, full of flavor without tasting like it's loaded with artificial sweeteners." 

And, of course, people continue to pour in to take on the Kitchen Sink, with the restaurant posting on social media that the latest winner had managed to tackle the challenge in an impressive 19 minutes and 28 seconds. If you want to take on the giant sundae yourself, Walnut Creek is just 25 miles from Oakland International Airport, one of the least crowded airports in America, and 35 miles from San Francisco International Airport, which has a direct BART connection to Walnut Creek. Looking for a savory food challenge instead? Check out the Ohio food haven also featured on "Man v Food."