The first time I even hear about custard, I'm at the Post-Gazette's local hangout (read bar) explaining the concept of our Worth the Trip series.

Vicki Wilson, presents a fudge caramel pie at Glen's Custard in Springdale.(Tony Tye, Post-Gazette) This is an occasional series that takes a look at the small food businesses competing against big box grocers and chain restaurants. They are in small towns throughout the region, and locals know them well. In this installment, we go in search of custard and find two exceptional offerings, one in Springdale, Allegheny County, and one in New Brighton, Beaver County.

The after-work cocktail crowd likes the idea and immediately starts throwing out suggestions for places to visit. (Given that it's the after-work cocktail crowd, I politely reject most of them.)

And then Rick, one of the regulars, calls out.

"Glen's Custard. In Springdale. You gotta go to Glen's. It's a destination."

The after-work crowd agrees. Seems I'm the only one who has never had Glen's Custard.

Over the next few weeks I try to get there several times but fate and PennDOT conspire against me. Finally, on a recent rainy Sunday, I head out.

With Route 28 under construction, I zip out the Parkway East to Monroeville and pick up the turnpike to the Allegheny Valley exit. In less than 35 minutes, I'm driving along Pittsburgh Street past the big, pink elephant on the Cheswick Pools sign and into Springdale.

The directions indicate Glen's will be on the right, and sure enough, a tiny squarish building plastered with colorfully hand-drawn product posters and a line of customers comes into view.

The fact that it's dreary and cold and customers are still in line bodes well. If people are lined up in the cold, the custard's got to be good.

Glen's opened in 1948 in Cheswick when Glen Wilson and his son, Glenn, went into business. A decade later, the duo lost their lease. The younger Wilson bought property at Pittsburgh Street and Porter Avenue just down the road in Springdale, and the new store opened in 1958.

"I'm the third generation," said Rob Wilson, the founder's grandson. "I've got a son who's going to college, and he's considering coming into the business."

Wilson tells me Glen's uses a time-tested recipe for custard that includes the 10 percent butterfat. Otherwise, he's keeping mum about the ingredients and the equipment.

"We try to keep the old-fashioned style as much as we can," Wilson said. "You go to these soft-serve places, they pump air into the product. Our small cone will be only half the size, but if you hold both, ours will weigh just as much and be colder. Air raises the temperature. It doesn't taste as good."

The proof is in the pudding (or the custard, as the case may be), and Glen's is creamy and luscious. (At the Post-Gazette, in the interest of serving our readers, we tried every flavor.)

In addition to soft custard, Glen's has frozen custard and a homemade sherbet, along with frozen cakes and pies. And many of the products, the Glenwich and the Julie bar, for example, are named after family members.

Glen's has a spacious parking lot and picnic tables, where you can sit and enjoy your treat. If you have time, check out the 18-hole mini-golf course out back. It's worth the trip.

Glen's Custard is at 400 Pittsburgh St. at Porter Avenue in Springdale. It opens at 11 a.m. Mondays through Saturdays and noon Sundays and closes at 11 p.m. weeknights, 11:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Phone: 724-274-5516.

All you really need to know about Hank's Custard in New Brighton is this: hand-dipped and 10 percent milk fat.

Kind of makes you sigh blissfully, doesn't it?

Hank's has been around for 56 years, and although Hank Grosshans has died and his family is no longer involved, his custard-making legacy lives on.

Jeff Kohlmann, the new owner, razed the original building, but despite a sparkling new facility, everything else is old.

"Although it was a landmark, it was a hard-to-work-out-of landmark," Kohlmann said. "But everything else is the same. Same exact custard recipe, same exact machines, same mix."

That means using only Titusville Dairy Custard Ice Cream Mix, with 10 percent milk fat, and mixing it with flavorings that are then poured into four stainless steel Electro Freeze Machines, circa 1950.

The gleaming stainless steel machines are so old, Kohlmann spends several thousand dollars a year to keep them running in tip-top shape.

"They quit making parts for them in 1974," he says.

Kohlmann is so new to the business, he brought back longtime employee Chris Geary to supervise operations. Geary started working there as a teenager in 1981 and left in 1998.

Geary says each of the four machines has it own identity and he knows their quirks.

"They all run their own product. New machines, they don't do justice to these old machines," he says. "You can't find machines like that anymore."

And you can't find custard like Hank's in many places, either.

But if you're not in the mood for custard, Hank's sells Mexican food that's worth the trip, too.

Hank's, 2210 Third Ave., New Brighton, is open every day from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. (11 p.m. in the summer). Phone: 724-847-4265.