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Edinburgh Live
Edinburgh Live
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David McLean

Flashback Mr Boni's Edinburgh menu takes us back to legendary ice cream parlour's glory days

As every Edinburgh local of a certain age knows, you simply couldn’t lick Mr Boni’s when it came to top quality ice cream.

Opening its doors in 1979, the Lochrin Buildings establishment was the first ice cream parlour in Scotland to offer a huge range of flavours of ice cream.

Mr Boni’s menu included an array of imaginatively-titled items.

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Sundaes, of course, were one of the parlour's specialties, with customers able to choose from a wide variety of different types and flavours such as the Malibu Sunrise (£10.95), Hot Fudge Volcano (£14.95) and - featuring just about everything the Boni family could think of - the Kitchen Sink (£9.95).

Then there was the gargantuan Mr Boni's Belly Banger. Layered with 10 scoops of Boni's flavoured ice cream, smothered in fresh whipped cream, with wafers and a cherry on top, this was arguably the closest thing Edinburgh had to a Man Versus Food challenge back in the 1990s.

And, as our retro menu shows, the Belly Banger was very reasonably priced at just £8.50, which, even adjusted for inflation, is roughly £13.

So proud was the family-run business of its epic portions, that it claimed to serve "the biggest ice cream sundaes in town or even anywhere".

Other sundaes on the menu included the Hot Fudge Fruit Cocktail (£3.75) and the Hot Fudge Nutty Nut (£3.95).

Those who visited Mr Boni's as a kid may also recall their legendary ice cream birthday cakes. These novel creations won the Boni family many an award over the years.

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And it wasn't all about the ice cream; the Tollcross café also served a vast selection of sandwiches, hot dogs and melts.

Mr Boni's had long history in Edinburgh going back to just after the First World War.

It was around this time that Biagio Boni came to Scotland as a young man to escape economic hardship in the Frosinone area of Italy.

He opened a small café in Gilmore Place called the Empress Café, then, in 1910, he invited his younger brother Giuseppe to join him in his business venture.

As well as the cafe, they sold ice cream from a hand barrow and the ice cream cart became a well-known and welcome sight on the streets of Edinburgh. In 1932, Biagio moved into the cones and wafer business and Giuseppe took over the cafe. Giuseppe sadly passed away in 1945 and his widow Jennifer and their 15 year old son Lawrence took over the business.

The Empress closed in the 1960s and was relaunched as The Quernstone Restaurant.

In 1979, The Quernstone became Mr Boni's Ice Cream Parlour, with the family eventually expanding to other locations in the capital, including St Mary’s Street and Cockburn Street.

Despite the parlour's huge popularity, Mr Boni's closed down in 2002.

An original Mr Boni's sign reappeared during a shop refit at the Lochrin Buildings in 2017. Following much public excitement, the ghost signage was preserved.

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