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Axios
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Axios
The 16 best ice cream shops in Chicago: Vote for your favorite
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! Voting will remain open until 4pm on Tuesday.
USA Today
2 days ago
- Business
- USA Today
Celebrate National Ice Cream Day 2025 with 6 deals and free ice cream
Hey! Guess what? It's National Ice Cream Day 2025! We all scream for ice cream, right? WOOHOO! That's right, dairy-loving friends, it's time once again for the day to celebrate our favorite frozen treat, and this time it's on Sunday, July 20, 2025. Why is Sunday, July 20 National Ice Cream Day? I have no idea, but free or discounted ice cream is the important thing here, and we want you to get that as soon as humanly possible. So let's stop writing about the why and get to the important stuff here: A partial list of joints that we've found who will give something away or sell you something for less than the usual price: Baskin-Robbins If you're a rewards member, you can get $5 off orders of at least $20. Friendly's If you're not a rewards member, you can get a scoop of ice cream for 90 cents. If you are, you can get a free cone or dish of the cold stuff. Yogurtland Rewards members can get double points on orders. Dippin' Dots For two hours, they'll give away free cups of their ice cream on Sunday. Dairy Queen If you're in their rewards program, you can get a free Dilly Bar if you spend $1 or more. Dunkin' Rewards member? You can get triple the points on frozen drinks on Sunday.
Time Out
3 days ago
- Business
- Time Out
Where to get free ice cream for National Ice Cream Day in the U.S.
To say that we love ice cream in the U.S. is a bit of an understatement. According to the International Dairy Foods Association, in 2024, 1.31 billion gallons of ice cream were produced in the country. On average, Americans eat around twenty pounds of ice cream each year, equal to about four gallons per person. That said, on a hot summer day, there are few more refreshing treats than ice cream. Whether you enjoy it in a cone, a cup or in a sundae with multiple toppings, the summer is the perfect time for this sweet, creamy, frozen dessert. And National Ice Cream Day is the optimal day for celebrating with some freshly churned scoops, ideally of the free sort. What day is National Ice Cream Day? If you didn't know it already, this Sunday, July 20 is National Ice Cream Day. But who wants to commemorate just one day when you can celebrate a whole weekend of ice cream, right? The best part? Ice cream sellers from coast to coast are celebrating this very summer holiday with deals aplenty. Keep scrolling to see some of the best. Where to get free ice cream for National Ice Cream Day in the U.S. Baskin-Robbins Beginning on Sunday through July 26th, Baskin-Robbins is celebrating National Ice Cream Day by offering Baskin-Robbins Rewards members $5 off orders of $20 or more placed through a third-party delivery service. Burger King On July 20th, the popular fast-food chain is celebrating the holiday by offering Royal Perks members a free Soft Serve ice cream cone with the purchase of $1 or more. Dairy Queen From now until July 20th, DQ is offering a free Dilly Bar (vanilla soft serve dipped in a crunchy chocolate coating, cherry or butterscotch) for DQ Rewards members with a purchase of $1 or more through the DQ app or website. Dippin' Dots This Sunday, Dippin' Dots will be giving away free mini cups of Dippin' Dots during a two-hour window (check your local store for giveaway hours). The first 100 guests will also receive a free souvenir take home cup. Friendly's Friendly's Fan Club Rewards members can get a free cone or dish of ice cream on National Ice Cream Day. Graeter's Sweet Rewards Loyalty Program members can get Member $1.55 single-dip sugar cones through Sunday. Jeni's On National Ice Cream Day, guests can add Sundae Fudge Sauce to any order for free. Marble Slab Creamery Marble Slab loyalty members will get a free small ice cream on National Ice Cream Day. My/Mochi Ice Cream To celebrate National Ice Cream Day, My/Mochi fans can enter to win a year's supply of ice cream when they follow the brand on Instagram, like a post, comment with summer plans, and tag a friend. Petco Even your furry friends can take advantage of National Ice Cream Day deals. Petco is offering free pup cups of ice cream in stores. Van Leeuwen To celebrate National Ice Cream Day this Sunday, Van Leeuwen ice cream is offering $3 scoops of its popular Honeycomb flavor from noon to 2 pm 16 Handles
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Value remains a top draw of loyalty programs
This story was originally published on CX Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily CX Dive newsletter. Dive Brief: Consumers are seeking more substantial value from loyalty programs, with 85% saying they want better discounts, according to a Kobie survey of 5,000 global participants released Wednesday. The ability to track earnings is also important, particularly for paid loyalty programs. Two-thirds say they immediately appreciate the value of fee-based loyalty programs when they see how much they've saved in a year. More than 4 in 5 respondents said they would be interested in surprise earning opportunities. Dive Insight: While value is a core aspect of loyalty programs, companies may want to keep simplicity top of mind while finding ways to stand out from the crowd. There is a difference between value and effective value, Jerid Grandinetti, VP of marketing and culinary at Baskin-Robbins, told CX Dive in January. Customers who can't earn desired rewards won't find those rewards valuable regardless of how much they can save. With that in mind, the company redesigned its Baskin-Robbins Rewards program to not just make customers feel like they're getting a deal but also make the rewards flexible and easy to earn. 'I think what we've learned is that our offers need to be simple, they need to be consistent, they need to be compelling, and they need to match guest behavior,' Grandinetti said. Not only do customers want different rewards, but their approach to redeeming them varies as well. Kobie's research found that about half of consumers are "savers," defined as those who earn points with a specific loyalty reward in mind, while one-third are "collectors" who earn points without a specific goal. Just one in five are considered "spenders" who redeem points as soon as they are eligible for a reward. While monetary rewards are popular, loyalty programs can also benefit from offering a variety of rewards that go above and beyond transactional value. Prizes and experiences can help a program stand out, particularly among a brand's most loyal customers. Butcher Box takes this approach with its Sizzle Society loyalty program. The three-tiered program offers the equivalent of 2% back with each purchase for all members, but customers who reach the higher tiers can access experiential benefits like priority customer support and access to virtual Q&As with the company founder. 'The table stakes, if you will excuse the pun there, are offering points back,' Chief Commercial Officer Reba Hatcher told CX Dive last month. 'That is just a loyalty program. Nothing about that makes ButcherBox stand out, and nothing about that makes our program special. You can go to another company and get your 2% back.'
Chicago Tribune
04-07-2025
- Chicago Tribune
Maggie Mulqueen: What does summer mean for my family and me? The beach — and books.
My love for the beach and for reading go as far back as I can remember, and luckily for me, these two loves exist in harmony. Reading at the beach is one of my deepest pleasures. A beach bag without a book would feel as sacrilegious as one without sunblock. To this day, the beach is one place where you still see a majority of people reading books since the glare of the sun makes electronics difficult. Growing up on Long Island, I went to the beach year-round along with weekly visits to my local library. As a young girl, I participated in the summer read-a-thons hosted by the library to encourage literacy. The reward for my efforts was a gift certificate for an ice cream cone at the local Baskin-Robbins. Summers during high school, I worked at the library in the daytime and waitressed at the beach at night. The rhythm of the ocean and the words on a page transported me across time and space and expanded my horizons. When I was looking at colleges, my need for water and a library remained paramount. I landed at Northwestern University with a view of Lake Michigan from the library stacks. On warm, sunny days, I took my books to the beach to study. When I met my husband, I wondered if he could blend harmoniously with my earlier loves and find pleasure in a day of sand, sun and reading. Happily, growing up on the north shore of Boston and spending summers on Cape Cod, he, too, shared a long history of going to the beach, book in hand. Once we had children, the weight of the beach bag increased. More towels, more sunblock and more books joined the pails and shovels as we set off on our beach vacations. Eventually, pails and shovels were replaced by footballs and Frisbees, but the beach bag was still the repository for books, one for each of us. Our three sons are now grown and live in various locations. Time together is hard to come by, and a family summer vacation is no longer guaranteed. With this natural evolution, I lamented the loss of shared experiences and struggled to think of how we could stay connected. Upon reflection, I recognized that the love for beach and books ran deep among us all, and so 'The Family Summer Read' was born. The rules are simple. Starting with the oldest member of our family — me — once a year, a book is selected and copies sent to each person by Memorial Day with the expectation it will be read by Labor Day, the traditional bookends of summer. We set a day and time to meet on Zoom in September to discuss that year's selection. Throughout the summer, texts are sent with photos of people reading and updates on how far into the book they are. Competition runs strong in our family, so there is an underlying urge to be the first one to finish. My initial selection was 'The Warmth of Other Suns' by Isabel Wilkerson, a hefty choice for a beach bag. The next year, my husband chose 'Walking with the Wind,' a memoir by John Lewis with Mike D'Orso, another sizable selection. By the time it was our youngest son's chance to pick, he rebelled and opted for a paperback fantasy, 'The Lies of Locke Lamora' by Scott Lynch. 'This,' he declared, 'is a summer read.' I admit it made for much easier trips to the beach than the previous tomes we had chosen, and it was a delight to be taken out of the darkness of our world for a brief time. We are now at year nine of 'The Family Summer Read,' and we have welcomed a new member. Over time, we hope to be joined by others who are willing to pay the price of admission to our family, a love for books and the beach. Volunteering to carry the beach bag doesn't hurt either. Maggie Mulqueen is a psychologist who has written for outlets such as CNN Opinion, NBC NewsThink and The Boston Globe.
