Before ice cream, cones were only filled with cheerleading chants and an overwhelming sense of responsibility for organizing traffic. Enjoy a conical dessert with today's Groupon: for $5, you get $10 worth of ice-cream and coffee treats at Bobtail Ice Cream Company. This Groupon is valid only at the 2951 North Broadway location.
The skilled scoopers of Bobtail Ice Cream Company combine the nostalgic aesthetic of a classic ice-cream parlor with inventive flavors and mixed coffee drinks. Scoops of ice cream in classic flavors such as butter pecan and mint chip—along with seasonal varieties—rest at the summits of cones and depths of cups like the world's laziest explorers ($2.99 for one scoop; $3.99 for two scoops). The shop also blends locally appropriate concoctions such as Daley Addiction, vanilla ice cream swirled with butter fudge, and Lakeview Barhopper, a mélange of dutch-cocoa ice cream and Jack Daniels, with optional billiard-ball sprinkles.
Icy morsels liquidate slowly over warm brownie sundaes ($5.99), and whirring blenders pulverize favorite ice creams into smooth milkshakes ($4.29). Buzz seekers can opt for a small ice-cream latte, a caffeinated mix of ice cream steamed with milk and poured over piping espresso ($3.29). Classic signage and pictures of historic Chicago scenes evoke the summer scooperies of one's youth or one's past life as a soda jerk.
Bobtail Ice Cream Company
Sweet vanilla, chocolate, and fruit flavors meld together in homemade ice creams inspired by three generations of family recipes at Bobtail Ice Cream Company. The company's roots stretch back to 1950, when Grandpa Wilcoxon handed out his first personally created treat from his ice-cream truck. Mr. Wilcoxon's unquenchable admiration for his products and his customers inspired his grandson, Jeff, to follow in his grandfather's footsteps and invent a time machine. Today, Bobtail Ice Cream Company carries on the dulcet tradition, even creating new flavors based on customer suggestions, including lemon-oreo-lavender, and Rahm Rasin—a version of rum raisin that enacts tax legislation. The unique flavors bring out the underlying notes of individual ingredients, just as the blue-and-white awning links the parlor's history to a modern sense of nostalgia.