Rainbow Cone celebrates 100 years but keeps iconic recipe
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Rainbow Cone exhibit at Museum of Ice Cream. Photo: Carrie Shepherd/Axios
Chicago's Original Rainbow Cone is 100 this year, but it's staying dedicated to its recipe.
Flashback: Joe and Katherine Sapp opened Rainbow Cone at 92nd and Western in Beverly in 1926, serving their signature five-layer ice cream treat of chocolate, strawberry, Palmer House, pistachio and orange sherbet.
- Always sliced, not scooped.
Context: The Original Rainbow Cone became a South Side destination for Chicagoans who tried it at Taste of Chicago and tourists who tried it at restaurant trade shows or saw it on the Food Network.
- "So many people are coming in from California ... fly in and come to O'Hare and come to Rainbow and say, 'I've never had a product like this,'" Lynn Sapp tells Axios.
- Sapp, Katherine and Joe's granddaughter, bought the business from her parents in 1986.
The latest: The Museum of Ice Cream joins Rainbow Cone's centennial celebrations this summer with an exhibit dedicated to the sweet shop's history, including archival photos and the ice cream paddles servers use to slice up the flavors.
- Beyond the museum, a Rainbow Cone truck will serve $5 cones on Saturday and Sunday in Pioneer Court, with the truck popping up at events all summer.
- Sox fans have a chance to win a free cone if the team scores in the fourth inning.
State of play: After more than 90 years as a South Side-only institution, Sapp sold Rainbow Cone to the Buonavolanto family-owned Buona Beef in 2018.
- Rainbow Cone had been Sapp's life since working there in eighth grade, through making and delivering Rainbow Cone cakes to weddings and birthdays.
- As she started thinking about transitioning out of the business, she knew it had to maintain its family-owned roots.
- "I was very guarded about the product because it is so iconic and it's people's memories," Sapp says. "I had to partner with somebody that understood that."
What's next: Sapp is now a consultant and Rainbow Cone historian.
- "I'm hoping that [Rainbow Cone] is in a lot more places, and I'm hoping that it stays unique and it's still the star of the show. There's nothing like it."