Thrifty Ice Cream

Rite Aid stores offer OC residents a shortcut to inexpensive ice cream by the scoop

Thanks to inflation, food prices have been out of control for a couple of years, and the typical cost of a scoop of great ice cream is now in the $5 to $6 range. Operating inside Rite Aid stores in Southern California, Thrifty Ice Cream – a nearly 85-year-old company – does things differently, offering a big honking scoop of good old-fashioned ice cream for $2.79.

Given that low price – which was notably only $2 in 2023 – you might expect that the quality is poor, that you can only choose from vanilla or chocolate, or that there’s some other hitch, but nope: There are around two dozen flavors to choose from, including a couple of sorbets, and though they’re largely supermarket freezer staples, they’re served here at just the right temperature and consistency to be soft without melting quickly.

We’ve liked all the flavors we’ve tried, though we wouldn’t necessarily try to do direct taste tests against versions sold for two or three times the price. So even though a flavor like Cherry and Chip might not use fancy ingredients, the big maraschino chunks alone made Thrifty worthy of repeat visits for us. Also neat: They use a different type of tool to scoop their ice cream, so it comes out in a distinctive tube-like shape.

One note: the Thrifty sections at Rite Aid aren’t necessarily staffed by dedicated employees (which keeps the cost down), so you may need to wait a few minutes to be served. But the wait time isn’t much different from what you’d encounter at a typical ice cream shop these days, and you’ll pay less. You can now also find Thrifty quarts for sale in supermarkets, should you prefer to have a similar experience at home.

Stats

Price: $
Service: Counter
Open Since: 1940 (CA)

Addresses

18112 Culver Dr.
Irvine, CA 92612
949.786.0151

Additional locations inside Rite-Aids across OC

Instagram: @thriftyicecream