Still No End To The Rainbow As Original Rainbow Cone Celebrates Big 100 At Original Locale

CHICAGO—It was 100 years ago in August when Joe and Katherine Sapp opened their little ice cream shack on a dusty strip of Western Avenue. Not satisfied with serving single-flavor cones, the Sapps hit upon a five-flavor combo, piled not with balls but with multi-flavored slabs of chocolate, strawberry, Palmer House, and pistachio ice cream, sliced into segments and topped off with orange sherbet.

Soon the Sapps’ revolutionary Original Rainbow Cone was drawing every Model T on the South Side to their little ice cream shack. Separated by the City of Big Shoulders, the rainbow cone became an urban legend Southsiders kept secret from the North Side, a place where you took your snotty second cousins visiting from Rogers Park to shut them up.

Such was the success of the Original Rainbow Cone, Joe and Katherine purchased the building at 92nd Street and Western Avenue, where it has churned out millions of Rainbow Cones over an entire century. The building was painted a florid orange to make it stand out on Western Avenue when it unexpectedly, and magically, faded from Chicago scorchers and polar vortexes into Katherine’s favorite “Pepto-Bismol pink,” Joe and Katherine’s granddaughter, Lynn Sapp, told Patch in 2018.

Now surrounded by homes and big box stores, the building is repainted the same color orange every ten years until fading into its iconic pinkness. To celebrate its centennial, the Original Rainbow Cone will be offering a BOGO from Aug. 3 through Aug. 9 at all its Chicagoland locations.

Celebrate 100 years of the Original Rainbow Cone at the original Beverly location at 9233 S. Western Ave., Chicago, from 10:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 9, where a special birthday party is planned. Every guest who celebrates with a Rainbow Cone wins a prize—from free treats to a private Rainbow Truck Party! RSVP on Original Rainbow Cone Facebook.