After Rite Aid announced in early May that it’s closing hundreds of stores after filing for bankruptcy, ice cream lovers around the country have started to panic about the availability of Thrifty Ice Cream.
The drugstore chain may not be the only store to sell Thrifty Ice Cream, but other locations are not quite as plentiful.
That’s bad news for enthusiastic fans of the frozen dessert, many of whom are voicing their concern on a Reddit subgroup devoted to Zillennials, or those born between the late 1990s and early 2000s.
“Wait… You mean to tell me that the greatest ice cream in existence could be gone soon?” one worried Thrifty fan wrote in the group.
According to the official Thrifty website, the ice cream brand got its start in a small factory in West Hollywood, California, in 1940. For years, the ice cream was sold by the cone at a counter at the flagship Thrifty Drug Store in downtown Los Angeles.
Eventually, the drugstore’s shoppers could also purchase the ice cream in cartons to take home and enjoy.
By the 1970s, Thrifty Ice Cream had developed a “cult status” on the West Coast, boasts its website with celebrities name-dropping the brand.
Rite Aid acquired Thrifty Ice Cream in 1996, according to the Los Angeles Times. Some of the drugstore’s locations even kept with tradition to continue serving Thrifty Ice Cream in cones at ice cream counters.
But now, as one of Rite Aid’s assets, Thrifty Ice Cream will be for sale at a June 20 auction as part of the company’s bankruptcy proceedings, according to Reuters.
So what does it mean for Thrifty Ice Cream’s future?
TODAY.com reached out to Thrifty Ice Cream and Rite Aid to get the, uh, scoop, but hasn’t yet heard back.
As of May 30, the Thrifty website says its ice cream is available in the freezer section of our “favorite retailers,” including Rite Aid, Albertsons and Vons. The ice cream can also be found “at scoop counters” across California and Arizona, along with a “growing number of regions in the U.S. and Mexico.”
Perhaps ominously, the site also includes a now-defunct link to a “store locator” meant to help customers find retailers that sell Thrifty Ice Cream.
As for those ice cream-loving Zillennials, they are leaning on one another in their most desperate hour.
“If we work some Zillennial magic, we can save the ice cream,” one wrote to boost spirits.
“Thrifty has hands down the BEST ice cream and has always stayed affordable!!!” someone else chimed in. “The pistachio has so many pistachios the malted crunch!! And my favorite the mint n chip!!! I love the tiny slivers of chocolate.. WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO????
Others waxed nostalgic while simultaneously suggesting that miracles are possible.
“They actually opened a Thrifty’s counter in my hometown gas station,” one wistfully recalled. “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.”
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