Heggy's Nut Shop
 Canton, Ohio        Date of Visit  08/23/15            http://heggysnutshop.com

I have known about Heggy’s existence for years, even have a friend that altered Buffet’s Margheritaville in praise of the place, which has been churning out burgers and ice cream (churning…ha) and whatnot since 1950. Ain’t never been. What was I thinking? Okay. I love the place. Tiny little joint. Friendly, relaxed and efficient service. Food classics ranging from good to great.
 

Nuts & Chocolates Are Both Standouts
 

I love this place like I love Bob’s Hamburg, dripping with honest history and hard work sustained over decades. Some of this stuff is incredible.

We went with the classics, chili; steakburgers one simple one loaded; a footlong (actually 2 six-inch) coney; rings, fries, & slaw; a shake, a float, & a sundae; and finally we picked up some chocolates and nuts to go.

I’ll start with the chocolates and nuts, since they show up in some of the other dishes. The chocolates are high quality with some really interesting combos and fillings. The nuts, whoda thunk their nuts would be unique. They are outstanding, still oily from the fresh roasting. We got a bag of hard white peanuts and a bag of peanutless deluxe mixed. The hard white peanuts are exactly that, crunchy and salty nuts toasted to the point where just a hint of bitter appears. The mixed are also roasted to an almost light-splash-of-coffee darkness, which makes the mix more of an well developed symphony than a handful of nuts. Didn’t think I would find them so different and so good.
 

The chili is made from scratch, a bean and beef combo, fresh but really docile and pretty boring for my taste. The coleslaw was a completely different beast. Pretty standard red and green cabbage mix with some carrot and an acidic binding of vinegar with probably a little mayo. Then they add those super crunchy and deep peanuts and craisins, it just works incredibly well.
 

The coney grind had a bit more going on than the chili did but I would more likely return for a burger than the dogs. The dogs are fine but the burgers are hand cut from fresh loins in house and you can tell. Simple, classic, delicious. Nothing more. The rings were also very good but it was my first experience with the looniness of their fries, which sticks in my memory. Their claim to fry fame is they plop a pat of butter atop the thick and crispy sticks of fried tater. I don’t even know if I could honestly say I would have recognized it was butter had it not been on the menu and slowly melting down through the fries at the table, but I did murder me plenty of fries.
 

Their ice cream is smooth, elegant and loaded with vanilla. All three of our chilly options were vanilla based, but each was imbued with or set into stupendous ingredients.

The rootbeer in the float was every bit as sweet and lush as the ice cream but was also complex and deeply flavored…easily one of the best I’ve had.

The shake was caramel and exactly what I had been hoping it would be. The small turtle sundae (a large was delivered to the table next to us and was monumental) same beautiful ice cream, nutty and sweet caramel and then a cup of broken little nuggets of salty, darkly, darkly, roasted pecans.

Canton seems a lot closer than a half hour away, now that I have had my first journey to Heggy’s. Going to become a part of the rotation.