Updated Jul 23, 2025 - Food and Drink
The 16 best ice cream shops in Chicago: Vote for your favorite
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The Original Rainbow Cone in Beverly. Photo: Monica Eng/Axios
It's time for our monthly tournament, designed to choose the best of all things Chicago.
This month, we are diving into one of our most cherished institutions —ice cream shops.
Why it matters: Ice cream parlors help tie our neighborhoods together. The best are seared into our city's collective consciousness.
- Whether it's soft serve, sundaes, milkshakes or a heaping pile of all of it (including sherbet), we love our sweet treats.
Methodology: Here's the hard part. We could only pick 16 places for this tournament, so there are some stipulations.
- We only picked spots in the city. We'll leave the suburbs for a different tournament. We did, however, include Dairy Star, since that is so close to the city limits.
- We excluded big chains. So no Baskin-Robbins, Dairy Queen, Jeni's, Oberweis or La Michoacana.
- No gelato spots or Italian ice stands. Sorry, Black Dog and Mario's!
Let the arguments begin!
