Marylou’s

Everybody has their morning coffee routine and if you're on the South Shore and you're looking for a hot coffee, an iced coffee, or a gourmet flavored coffee, chances are you're going to stop at Marylou's. Marylou's is famous for their hot pink color scheme. Their crazy selection of ice coffee and their iconic television commercials. But people always ask the same thing. Is there an actual Mary Lou? And the answer is yes. Marylou Sandry is the founder and the president.

"I love coffee. I drank coffee as a little girl at the breakfast table with my mother. She tried to make me drink milk. I hated hated milk. She would take my glass of milk and she'd scoop some of her coffee into my glass of milk. And it got to the point where I just sat and had a cup of coffee with my mother. I love coffee. I love coffee, ice cream. I love coffee, anything."

At Marylou's , they have all of these ice coffees already flavored ready to go ready to be poured. The variety of iced coffee flavors is honestly ridiculous. Check this out here. You got banana nut, French vanilla, hazelnut, cinnamon and hazelnut, Hawaiian chocolate nut…. It keeps on going and going. Milky caramel blast, mocha mint secret… secret? Toasted almond, white chocolate chip, regular. It goes on and on and on… That's almost too much caffeine for me to handle. Almost. The beauty of these ice copies is that the flavor is already in the beans so by the time you get it in your cup, it is smooth. It is sweet, it is rich and it doesn't have that syrupy sticky aftertaste. But how exactly did Marylou get into the coffee business in the first place? That's a bit of a story.

"Back in 1986, I had a great job. I had been there for 18 years. And I was approaching my 40th birthday. And I, I was bored, I was restless. I thought that I worked so hard for these people. I wanted to do my own thing, but I didn't know what it was. Anyway, I searched the papers. I'm going through the Patriot Ledger. This just caught my attention. BYOB. Bring your own booze, Be your own boss. However you take that ok?. Like I have to find out what this is all about. And I went down. I made an appointment with the realtor. I saw the little Hanover store. I fell in love of it. So I go home and I told my parents. I want to buy this little store down in Hanover. And they’re like ‘are you crazy?. No, don't do it. Don't do it.’ But I did. I did. And it was just a lot of fun and banter inside the store. Learning the customers names... Knowing what their drink, what they drank before they even have it ready for them. And people really really like that they'd like to be acknowledged and recognized."

It's the best coffee in town, legit.

"‘86 was Hanover. ‘87 Braintree. ‘88 Hull. ‘89 Rockland. And now we have 46 stores. Pretty busy."

With so many options how can you decide what to order? Well we asked Rachel the store manager because she knows all the most popular in the tastiest drinks

"A crowd favorite and I've heard it's one of your favorites is the peanut butter wonderful. It's in the middle. It is a specialty coffee so it is a coffee with Mocha and it gives you a perfect balance of sweet but not too sweet.

The banana split is an extra specialty. So it is one of our sweet desserty coffees. It is a combination of flavors that give you a profile of bananas, strawberries, whipped cream, chocolaty, a little bit of nuttiness background notes, everything that you get when you're scooping a banana split. Instead, you're sipping it through a straw.

The Mintylou is one of our best sellers as well. Not only does it draw attention because of the name… People always love saying Minty Marylou… minty, chocolaty, sweet, delicious, creamy drink. And that one kind of tastes like we've talked about a grasshopper ice cream almost, very forward mint flavor, balanced out with the sweet chocolate.

The Funky Funabla is one of probably our most famous drinks as well, not only for the name, but because it is just so deliciously, it's chocolaty, when you take a sip of it, it also has a chocolate rim just like the banana split does… That one when you take a sip of that one, it is chocolate overload for the chocolate lover with a hint of cinnamon sweetness to it, to give it a little bit of depth.

So the Caramelou when people come in, they ask a lot about what do you have for a caramel coffee. We always love to point them in this direction. If they love something sweet because it combines caramel, like you've never really had it before. It's chocolatey. It's sweet caramel notes. Definitely a sweet way to start your day.

I really love what Marylou's has done and being part of it as an employee is really rewarding because she has provided a place where people go to be happier and be part of their everyday life. And really it's just a place where coffee is more than just the cup that you're serving."

"We are different. I want them to be acknowledged, I want them to have fun. It's all about fun. And I want them to get a great cup of coffee."

So whether you order on the app you come into the store or you just hit the drive thru you can definitely get the best coffee in town at Mary Lou's.