Nola Snow Snoballs

Since 1983, Nola Snow Snoballs has stood defiantly against the sweltering New Orleans heat, a beacon of frosty relief on Harrison Avenue in the guts of Lakeview. This isn't just a snoball stand; it's a family operation where tradition clashes gloriously with gustatory innovation, all within the confines of a humble shack that could easily be overlooked if not for the steady stream of locals and enlightened tourists lining up for a taste. The magic of Nola Snow isn't just in the nostalgia of shaved ice or the shock of cold on a hot day—it's in the artistry. Every flavor, from the boldly inventive wedding cake to the crisp spearmint, is crafted from the ground up, each recipe a guarded family secret whispered down through generations. It's a delightful juxtaposition of old-school craft and modern flair, hooking taste buds and drawing a crowd that's as diverse as the city itself. During a recent pilgrimage, I dove into a large wedding cake flavored snoball. The service was as quick as a hiccup, with a smile that was genuinely friendly—a rarity in the often cynical landscape of food service. The snoball itself? It was a revelation. They nailed it. That elusive taste of celebratory cake, distilled into ice, complete with the subtle play of vanilla and the just-right sweetness that elevates but doesn't overpower. It's something you'd proudly serve at a high-end dinner party, no question. Nola Snow Snoballs isn’t just slinging ice; they're curating experiences, one cup at a time. For anyone who thinks they know snoballs, a stop here is a must. It's more than refreshment—it's a deep dive into the flavor soul of New Orleans.

My snowball was soooooo good!!! I got the stuffed dreamsicle flavor. The ice cream inside was better than I expected, it tasted homemade and absolutely wonderful. My only problem is that we only had 1 family in front of us and they took FOREVER to serve them. We waited for maybe 15 minutes for this dad and two kids to get served. Please try to make your snowballs faster. It tasted great though.

Decided to try Nola Snow again after a couple previous disappointments. Same routine, white ice in the center, no soft serve and not open late enough when kids are out of school. I live 2 blocks off Harrison but Sal's Snowballs is worth the drive to get a dependable treat.

Great spot! Safe little area with lots of other shops in walking distance. Family-run business that keeps a clean stand. I like that they have clear flavors, and my husband likes the nachos. My daughter tries a new flavor almost every time we go and keeps a list of which ones she likes the best. Her fave list is quite long! The staff is friendly, and they seem to always have a line that moves quickly. I haven’t ever waited more than a couple minutes, and we have been going since our kids were tiny. Nola Snow is our favorite stand!

stale nacho chips & crunchy, dry snowballs. what a waste. we threw them away ..

a little slow.. only had 6ppl in front of me but took over 15min in the hot sun to take my order.. it was taking so long that ppl actually left after waiting more than 10min.. good snowball tho

Ordered two wedding cake flavored snowballs flavor taste delicious but only the top of the snowball was covered the rest was just ice and no juice at all. If the guy is going to serve customers at least ask if they want more juice or not. And as slow as the guy moves to make them you would think he doing more to the snowballs. And since a lot of ppl don't carry cash on them maybe upgrade to electronic payments since they are so worried about covid.

The snowball taste great but every time we come here there is never enough syrup throughout our snoball and there is a lot of just Ice! When you tell them to add more it’s just a little and still a lot of ice at the bottom! Would be a straight up five but I get a lot of ice in the middle and at the bottom!

Snowballs! Who doesn't love them? My favorite- Chocolate with extra condensed milk ! A really nice additional is their new (new to me) item is the "Snobet". Certainly got the chocolate, wedding cake and flan "Snobet".... Snowball meets sherbert type ice cream/soft snowball ice. You have to try them! These people are the nicest people I have ever met. They will go above and beyond to right a wrong!!

What I like about this place is that the cost for snowballs are very reasonable. They also had really good options on their menu and it was not overwhelming. What I do not like about this place is my experience with ordering a snowball. I was in line behind many Caucasian customers who left with snowballs drenched in juice, yet when it came to my order, they skimped me. The structure of the cone was perfectly shaped, and the entire inside full of ice untouched by the syrup. While the flavor I chose was pretty good and I like some of the options they had, my experience with them in that instinct turned me off to wanting to do business with them in the future. I definitely let the other African-Americans behind me know to check their snowballs and food before they left the stand (because if the store skimped me and no person who ordered before me in the line, then I wanted to be sure that they had a better experience than I did). The other menu items were overpriced in my opinion. For instance, nachos and cheese is $4.50 without peppers, they up charge for two or more flavors, and for a stuffed snowball, it varies on the size of your cup. There is outdoor seating under umbrellas.

They drown the ice in syrup that it's so overly sweet . I threw it out after 1 bite. If the syrups are homemade which I highly doubt based on the super bright colors they need to rethink the sugar ratios

Our family has been driving to Lakeview to enjoy the snoballs at Nola Snow since our kids were little. We love the safe little spot to eat them under the umbrellas. The staff is friendly, the ice is shaved like snow, the flavors are unique, and they even have nachos! It's a family-run business, and we feel good about supporting a local business. We often visit the pet store next door and enjoy window shopping at the art gallery next door. Great spot! Great people! Great snoballs!

Surly workers, slow af, gross syrups, chunky ice. They're actually serving bland, midwestern snow cones...go literally anywhere else (start with Hansen's, Chance in Hell, or Sal's) I honestly don't know how this place even stays open.

Service is slow. They won't accept a $50 bill even when they've been open for hours and have change and you're buying more than $20 of snowballs. Added to the slow lines and mediocre snowballs, I really wish I had never allowed my children to come here. Just nothing positive to say.

The snowballs here are quite tasty, and the prices are competitive, but the lines get long and the parking is tough at times, as they share their lot with other businesses. The best time to stop here is any time other than after school. There are several schools in the neighborhood and this is a favorite post school snack spot. Please heed my warning if waiting in lines is not your thing, and you can put off your snowball craving until any other time. Once you have made it to the front of the line, your choices are many, and I've yet to have a snowball here that wasn't delicious. My favorite is chocolate with sweetened condensed milk. Their soft serve ice cream is also pretty good if it's not a snowball you're craving.

Came back 25 years later after loving this place as a kid... still great! One of the best snowballs in the city. Bonus points for snowballs stuffed with soft serve.

4.5 stars Disclaimer: This review will be quite similar to my review of Nola Snow Snoballs on Vicksburg St, as they are serving the exact same snowballs at 2 Lakeview locations. I love me some NOLA Snow snowballs. As I stated in my review of the Vicksburg Street location, "the owners, Rudy & MiMi, are all about New Orleans. The staff is always friendly and if they aren't too busy, they'll answer questions about nearly every single flavor on the menu if you are having a hard time deciding on which flavor to get. Today, we had some family from Arizona at our house and they wanted to get a snowball. We told them all about Nola Snow and advised them that we could be there is less than 5 minutes. Fast forward 5 minutes and we arrived at the Harrison Avenue location and ordered 4 kiddie sizes as samplers for our out of town guests. They opted to get cherry, watermelon, coconut and white chocolate macadamia. All four of these are very good flavors, but in my opinion, nothing tastes better or is more New Orleans than their NOLA nectar. This location is in the heart of Lakeview, as I like to call it, and caters to what I like to refer to as the "South side" of Lakeview. The service is always friendly and Rudy & MiMi (as well as their daughter) are frequently on-site. This specific location is my go to snowball stand; especially since since it is less than 1 mile from my home. The only reason I give them 4.5 instead of 5 stars is that sometimes, the ice can be a little coarse and not completely velvety smooth. However, Nola Snow can hold it's own with any snowball stand in the city.

I just had my first snowball of the season here yesterday and it was delicious! I got the flan flavor out of curiosity and it didn't disappoint-- at least flavor wise. I took away one star because the syrup was just too thick to penetrate the ice. It took a long time with the spoon to get to all the pockets of white snow at the bottom, which gave enough time for big ice chunks to form. I'm know it tricky because you don't want the syrup too watery, but this delicious treat would be even better with a syrup that's less thick.

This has been one of my favorite snowball stands for years. In fact about 4 years ago, I came here for what seemed like every day in the summer and was always satisfied. Lately however, the snowballs have been a bit inconsistent. Today I got a snowball and the ice was much harder than I would I have liked, almost liked shaved ice. I didn't get much use out of my straw. I also would have appreciated it the employee was wearing gloves. Nonetheless, the flavoring from the syrup was good and not too watery. I just would have preferred softer ice, which is very important for a snowball to be good, in my opinion. I'll give it another shot soon and see if there's any improvement.

Decent snow balls, but the wait is absurd. There is often no chocolate ice cream available and the vanilla is underwhelming. This time, there wasn't even vanilla so the snowball couldn't be stuffed. Ordered a cafe au lait and there was white ice. Asked for more syrup and it was still white on the inside after the second pour (picture attached). Was told to "just keep poking the straw through." Wasn't worth the 30 minutes.

This is definitely the trashest snowball place in New Orleans. The ice isn't shaved all the way through so you get chunky bitys of whole ice and half shaved ice. This results in the syrup not reaching the whole snowball fully so you get a half flavored snowball. If you want an actually good snowball with "fluffy ice" like they advertise, I suggest going to Pandora's, Plum Street, Hansen's and many others. They also don't take cards FYI

Nola Snow not only has the best snowballs with original homemade flavors the service is allways great!

The snowballs are as good as you'll get anywhere around town. The service is SO SLOW. If there's a line with 5 people in front of you, expect it to take half an hour to get a snoball. Otherwise, I'd give 5 stars. My personal favorite flavor is chocolate with condensed milk, stuffed with chocolate soft serve.

The snowballs are perfect. I really like the homemade syrup. Large variety of flavors. NEVER DISAPPOINTED

Great snoball last Sunday! Did a great job of keeping people spread out and paying with minimal contact. Owners helping move the line along efficiently. Flavor options are plentiful! A good go to!

Best Snoballs in town! I can't say my favorite flavor, cause there are so many delicious ones. Chocolate, flan, nectar, cream of ice cream, all so amazing!!!

Service or lack of service is terribly slow. Owners are simply out to make money. Ice is simply not hard enough in this heat. Would melt way too fast. Owners sitting back watching teenagers run their business. Have had better service and snow cones around town. Will never return. Go somewhere else to avoid lines, get better customer service and better snow cones.

There's never enough syrup for the snoball, the ice is hard and crunchy, and the wait here is so long compared to any other snoball stand I've been to. Hansen's is superior by leaps and bounds.

Their ice is always so light and fluffy...I haven't seen other stands that have consistently fluffy ice. Their flavors are delicious and love the inventive ones they come up with sometimes! Keep it up!

Snowballs are good but the time it takes to get your snowball is RIDICULOUS!!!! Owners are standing in the back watching the poor teenage worker struggling with a mile long line. Hey buddy grab some ice and start working at YOUR business!

We went here for dessert last night (august 20, 2017) around 6:00 pm. The sign on the window said they closed at 7:00 pm. We parked in the parking lot, which was empty and the only open store was Nola Snow. It was obvious where we were going. There was an employee putting the umbrellas on the tables down. We got our 3 year old out of the car seat. Walked to the window to order, and the employee just stared at us. Then I saw the sign--closing early today. The employee clearly knew we were going to get a snowball, he watched us get our child out of the car seat; yet said nothing. It would have been nice of him, and easier for us, had he told us "we are closed". But, he was apparently not interested in being polite. Then, we got back in the car. As we started to back out, the employee didn't look and almost hit us. This review is not based on the quality of the sno ball; but rather the horrible customer service. We will not be going back. To me, customer service is as important as food quality. If the employee wouldn't tell us they were closed, what would happen if there was a problem with the food? Would he ignore the problem like he ignored a family of customers? I'm not going to go back to find out. We will go to another snowball place in the area next time (as we did last night). With so many snowball stands in New Orleans, I suggest going where there is good customer service. Stay away from Nola Sno Balls.

They just gave me a snowball with sour evaporated milk on it... and I'm pregnant. I hope I don't get sick!