Pasadena sweet shop sells 2-foot-tall mountains of sugar

It starts with a 32-once mason jar that is rimmed with frosting and sprinkles and filled with a vanilla milkshake, but that's not where Pasadena's Brain Freeze experience stops.

Gummy stars, gummy frogs, sour punch straws, lollipops, an ice cream sandwich, a strawberry ice cream bar and a mountain of cotton candy round out the sweet shop's signature drink – The Whole Shebang – a $15 rainbow-colored confection that stands almost two feet tall.

It's Brain Freeze's best seller, with wait lines often exceeding more than 20 minutes, Brain Freeze manager Lilia Martinez said. But they didn't always make monstrous treats. In fact, Martinez said the business had humble beginnings as a regular snow cone shop in a small building in Pasadena.

The massive confections at Brain Freeze in Pasadena come with a drink at the bottom, fruit and other goodies in the middle and giant piles of candy on top. The massive confections at Brain Freeze in Pasadena come with a drink at the bottom, fruit and other goodies in the middle and giant piles of candy on top. Photo: Y.C. Orozco/The Pasadena Citizen Photo: Y.C. Orozco/The Pasadena Citizen Image 1 of / 15 Caption Close Pasadena sweet shop sells 2-foot-tall mountains of sugar 1 / 15 Back to Gallery

"We started out small about five years ago," said Martinez. "It was just a snow cone shop where we sold regular snow cones – they were good snow cones, but they didn't have all the extra things we put on them now, but we were slow. Business wasn't really picking up so we thought, 'We need to do something.'"

That's when the snow cones started getting bigger.

"First we started adding gummies," said Martinez. "We started putting more into our menu. By the third year we were adding fruit kabobs to our drinks."

The sweets, along with their architecture, snowballed into the byzantine desserts they are today. Martinez feels that it's no coincidence that the expanding menu and size of their offerings seems to coincide with the growth in business for Brain Freeze.

"What's interesting to me," she said, "is that a lot of our customers don't come from Pasadena. We'll tell people that there's a 20-minute wait and they'll tell us, 'that's ok – we came from an hour away so we're waiting'."

Social media, she said, has been her biggest ally.

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"We've noticed that most people hear about us from Facebook and Instagram," she said. "What we have is a lot of word-of-mouth business, which is fantastic."

Social media was exactly brought Reyna Sanchez and her family in from Crosby May 3, after seeing some Candy Land-inspired concoctions on Instagram.

"We like fun drinks," she said. "When we saw that they had different kinds, different flavors with the candy all mixed in we had to come. It makes you want to try all of them."

The draw was similar for Jorge Gaytan, who was at Brain Freeze with his sister and nephew.

"This is my first time here," Gaytan said. "We read about it on Facebook and wanted to check it out – just reading the menu makes your mouth water."

Gaytan and his family drove from Memorial City in Houston – a 40 minute drive – with the specific plan of visiting the local confectioner's.

"We don't have anything like this where we live," he said, "so making the drive was worth it. We wanted to try it out."

But it's not all sweets at Brain Freeze. A medley of hot Cheetos, pickles and Valentina hot sauce, which is a menu item Martinez calls Cheekles, is another big seller for the business.

"We use Valentina hot sauce. There's a big difference between that and tabasco – it's a Mexican hot sauce and the flavor is different – that was an important choice for us," she said.

They also have a pickle juice snow cone sprinkled with hot Cheetos.

"It sounds like a weird combination but it tastes really good. It's for wild people," Martinez laughed. "You have to go to the wild side for that one."

There are also healthy options at Brain Freeze.

"Not everyone can eat a big dessert or drink a milkshake with cotton candy," she said. "People jokingly give us a hard time, but we have carrot juice, fresh fruit, orange juice – a lot of healthy options for people who want to enjoy the shop but can't eat too much sugar."

Brain Freeze is closed for a few months over the winter, typically from October until March.

"The fruit isn't as sweet then and we want to make sure that we're providing the best for our customers."

Currently, the shop is open from noon until 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and are closed on Sunday. The business accepts cash only and is located at 2716 Preston Avenue in Pasadena.