It’s an Instagrammer’s wildest dream: custom milkshakes brimming with various sweet or savory toppings manicured in a tall candy-dipped cup. Shake Therapy, which recently opened on South Carrollton Avenue just a block away from Tulane, offers customers gourmet milkshakes far more original than most other milkshake or ice cream parlors.

The shakes themselves, however, lack the thick creamy texture most milkshake enthusiasts desire, and the new business still needs to work out some organizational kinks. Shake Therapy is definitely worth a visit and an Instagram post, but it will likely not be anyone’s new go-to shake place in New Orleans.

Where Shake Therapy really falls flat is in the milkshake’s consistency, or more specifically the milkshake’s milk-to-ice-cream ratio. The milkshakes are not the desired, creamy shakes you can barely manage to suck through a straw because of the shake’s sweet thickness. Instead, the shakes are watery and runny.

The new milkshake joint is undeniably trendy. The crisp, white walls, brightened with stylish, bright light fixtures, counter the vibrantly-colored furniture, ice cream flavors and toppings.

Kick off your weekend with a #TreatMint! ⚜️💕🍦

A post shared by Shake Therapy (@shaketherapy) on Nov 3, 2017 at 2:27pm PDT

Embodying a picturesque ice cream parlor, the staff is extremely friendly, sociable and committed to customer satisfaction. Customers order in line through various stations, starting with choosing their ice cream flavor.

Ice cream is the foundation of milkshakes. Shake Therapy, mixing all its ice cream in house, delivers on this cornerstone. The ice cream is flavor-packed, offering choices rarely available at ice cream parlors like key lime pie, Candyland and holiday (which is a combination of pumpkin and cinnamon — essentially fall in a scoop).

Also offering more traditional flavors such as vanilla, peanut butter cup and mint chip, Shake Therapy provides a blank canvas for toppings and mix-in syrups. One nice touch is that customers have the option to mix two ice cream flavors together and experiment with ice cream combinations.

Despite offering a wide variety of toppings, Shake Therapy does not have fresh fruit toppings, which are typically considered essential at ice cream and milkshake parlors. They should consider labeling the toppings because there are more offered toppings than the customer can remember when the employee lists them off quickly.

Read Marielle S.‘s review of Shake Therapy on Yelp
Read Chloe G.‘s review of Shake Therapy on Yelp

They should also consider offering recommended pairings of the ice cream flavors and the toppings, as the variety is slightly overwhelming.

The lack of signage on toppings and syrups, coupled with nice, but seemingly overwhelmed workers make the customer feel overwhelmed with choices. Shake Therapy’s operations will likely improve with time, given that the restaurant opened earlier than intended due to popular demand following a soft opening.

Most Tulane students have by now seen Shake Therapy’s shakes littering social media feeds. This is for good reason — the shakes are beautifully designed.

The various, extravagant toppings and syrups allow customers to craft a customized and enticing shake. Shake Therapy’s shakes, however, lack the creamy consistency required for a high quality shake, and the shake-making process itself still has room to improve.