Remembering the joy of a Thrifty ice cream trip, from 10 cent scoops to iconic flavors

That iconic shape. Those vivid colors. The super affordable price! As we bid goodbye to Thrifty ice cream counters amid the Rite Aid chain shutdown, we wanted to take a moment to allow people to process their very deep feelings about this fateful event.

Many of you have cherished childhood memories of cold ice cream in hot summers, family visits, bygone birthday treats, or more recent must-have drop-ins. So we've gathered together what people have been saying in different places, online, on LAist 89.3's AirTalk, and among the LAist staff as a form of farewell.

“Back in the 80s and 90s, the whole store was called Thrifty. My local Thriftys were converted to Rite Aid in 1996, but the Thrifty ice cream counter was kept.”
- Carlos Gonzalez on Instagram @relicsofretail

"Thrifty Ice Cream was part of Thrifty Drug stores, originally started in Los Angeles but spread to Northern California. My grandfather always shopped at Thrifty Drugs. He had frugal sensibilities but was always good for a scoop of ice cream. I always got a scoop of Black Cherry or Coconut Pineapple. Today was a day of nostalgia and at 10am I got a scoop of Cherry and Chocolate Chip (no Black Cherry available 😞 ).”
-Julie F on Instagram @jflo_in_ca

“They actually opened a Thriftys ice cream counter in my hometown gas station…super random but the rite aid location closed YEARS ago so it was a miracle walking into the gas station and seeing my favorite ice cream lol.”
-Foreverbeccatake2 on Reddit

“Someone gave us a Thrifty ice cream scoop for Christmas and omg I swear the shape makes any ice cream taste better”
-Skski on Reddit

“Thrifty has hands down the BEST ice cream and has always stayed affordable!!! The pistachio has so many pistachios.... the malted crunch!! And my favorite is the mint-chip!!! I love the tiny slivers of chocolate.. WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO????”
-T-ThatsMe on Reddit

"Thrifty was such a huge part of my childhood birthday cake, ice cream, you will be missed. RUN TO RITE AID BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE”
- Brook & Haley on Tiktok

"I think the three things that make it really unique is the shape that it came in. That cylindrical scooper was extremely unique and weird, and it made you feel like you were getting something special for a pretty affordable price. Two, the colors are extremely bright and vivid and appealing to not just kids.... And the third thing was that they shaved their chocolate which makes it so much easier to eat, where it just melts on your tongue as opposed to crunching big, huge pieces of chocolate, which always turned me off.
-Ivy in Burbank on AirTalk

"You could even get a single scoop if you brought in an old telephone book. When the telephone books were changed out, you could go in and get a single scoop for your kid, and my daughter would go around the neighborhood and collect old telephone books so she could turn 'em in."
-Belinda on AirTalk

" I used to work for Rite Aid and I scooped ice cream all the time. You used to be able to pay for us to scoop you a pint. That was more expensive than buying it outta the freezer, but customers always swore it was better. I thought that was so strange. It didn't taste any different to me, but all the customers swore by it. They also said that if you got a nut ice cream [scooped by us], that it had more nuts than the ones in the boxes."
-Adriana in Cerritos, on AirTalk

The iconic Thrifty ice cream counter

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Steve Holtzman/LAist

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LAist staff

"Chocolate malted crunch was everything!"
-Libby Rainey, Reporter, Early Childhood

"I was always vanilla or chocolate chip, I grew up in HP ( Huntington Park, not Highland Park lol) and the Thrifty on Gage and Pacific was where we went...for 10 cents a scoop my mom could never say no to getting ice cream when everything else I asked for was a no."
-Cynthia Covarrubias, Senior Human Resources Generalist

"I walked down with my cousins to Rite Aid one time in the summer, and we grabbed one 15-qt tub of strawberry cheesecake to share with little plastic spoons. That tub didn't even last halfway the walk back to their home. It was gone. It was pretty tasty! That was probably the first time I tried it (I usually get chocolate chip cookie dough)."
-David Rodriguez, Partnerships Producer

"Thrifty mint chocolate chip is the ONLY mint chocolate chip. I used it every year in my signature birthday dessert. It's an icebox cake! I used to use Famous Chocolate Wafers, but they were discontinued, so now I make my own. And I've tried many other mint ice creams (used in place of whipped cream), but Thrifty is the best. I've been having the same cake for about 30 years now."
-Lucie Russo, Development Events Manager

"I fondly remember my parents treating us to some Thrifty ice cream at a Rite Aid in Anaheim. But over time, it started to feel like you were really inconveniencing the Rite Aid employees if you wanted a scoop. The workers also had to ring up shoppers, stock the shelves and take care of other drug store duties. It may be the haze of childhood nostalgia, but I recall a time when you didn't need to flag someone down. There always just seemed to be someone waiting at the ice cream station to help. A similar thing happened when drug stores started locking so many products behind glass: sales declined. Short staffing at Rite Aids turned Thrifty ice cream from a treat into a hassle."
-David Wagner, Housing Reporter

"I don't remember Thrifty so much as a kid, BUT, early on in college, walking through DTLA on a hot day, I decided to grab some ice cream at Rite Aid. I ordered two scoops on a cone, having no idea about the size/shape of the scoops (big cylinders), and my ice cream cone was taller than me...."
-Sarah Steinman, Membership Manager

"I grew up in South Gate. Every Friday, my dad took me and my three sisters to Thrifty on Otis and Missouri. It didn't matter if we'd behaved. It was tradition. We were only allowed to get one scoop. I always got a chocolate chip on a sugar cone. To this day, no other chocolate chip ice cream can compare."
-Julia Barajas, Higher Ed Reporter