Weird Norfolk Eats: Purple Biscuits, the Original Ice Cream Cone, and Pierogi Pizza

Eat Like a Local in Six Hours or Less

Cruise food is fine. Endless, but fine. The fastest way to remember you are actually in Norfolk and not in a floating buffet is to eat something the kitchen on deck nine could never make. The dishes below are weird in the best sense: they exist nowhere else, they have stories, and they are all within a quick walk or short ride of the Half Moone Cruise Terminal.

The Purple Sweet Potato Biscuit

Handsome Biscuit, in the NEON Arts District, builds its menu around a violet-hued biscuit made with Stokes purple sweet potato. The Reuben Hashbrown sandwich and the Toot-N-Hide (fried chicken, pimento cheese, hot honey, jalapeno bacon) are the order. Lines move fast, dining is mostly counter and patio, and the whole experience clocks in around 30 minutes. About four dollars for a plain biscuit, eight to ten for the loaded sandwiches. Cash and card both accepted.

The Original Ice Cream Cone at Doumar’s

Abe Doumar invented the rolled waffle cone at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. His nephew brought the original four-iron cone machine to Norfolk, and Doumar’s Cones and Barbecue has been operating from the same Monticello Avenue location since 1934. The original cone iron still rolls in the front window most afternoons. Order a fresh cone with limeade and a barbecue sandwich. Curb-side carhop service still works exactly like it did in the 1950s. Cash preferred; cones run about three dollars.

Pierogi Pizza at Cogan’s

Cogan’s Pizza in Ghent took two beloved comfort foods and made them one. Mashed potato base, sour cream drizzle, caramelized onion, cheddar, bacon, scallions. It sounds like a dare and tastes like genius. Cogan’s is a long-running dive that draws Old Dominion University students, off-duty navy sailors, and at least one nationally televised food critic per year. Slices are roughly five dollars; whole pies eight to twenty.

Smithfield Ham, Properly

Virginia ham is its own genre of cured meat, drier and saltier than Italian prosciutto and aged for months in nearby Smithfield. Several downtown restaurants serve it the right way: shaved thin, with biscuits, fig jam, or grits. Codex on Granby Street and The Grilled Cheese Bistro both feature it on weekend menus. If you only try one regional specialty in Norfolk, this is the one.

Where Locals Actually Drink

Skip the chain bars on Waterside Drive. No Frill Bar and Grill in Ghent is a Norfolk institution with a deep beer list and reuben sandwiches that rival the city’s best. The Birch on 22nd Street is a cocktail nerd’s bar with curated wines and zero pretension. Benchtop Brewing on Boissevain Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood pours a rotating set of small-batch beers in a working garage-bar setting; food trucks rotate through most evenings. Most are walkable from each other; the whole craft-beer crawl can fit into three hours if you pace yourself.

Don’t Forget Dessert

Sugar Shack Donuts on Granby Street fries fresh dozens every morning. Mrs. Yoder’s Kitchen at the Olde Towne Farmers Market sells whoopie pies the size of your hand. And if you somehow still have room, Cure Coffeehouse pulls a flat white that will get you back up the gangway with energy to spare. See the full Weird Norfolk Walk for a route that ties these food stops together.