Ghirardelli Soda Fountain & Chocolate Shop

Founded over 150 years ago, Ghirardelli occupies a special space in the American chocolate industry: It’s the rare large chocolatier with a reputation for premium rather than commodity products. Soon after its 1992 acquisition by Chicago- and Boston-based investors, it began expanding past its historic San Francisco roots (including its original Ghirardelli Square location) by opening ice cream and soda shops in Orange County and Monterey, debuting the Ghirardelli Soda Fountain & Chocolate Shop at Costa Mesa’s South Coast Plaza back in 1994. Although that location has since closed, Disney approached Ghirardelli to operate the same concept inside Anaheim’s Disney California Adventure, starting in 2012. Today, the famously illuminated sign is a visual landmark for the theme park’s Japanese-American “San Fransokyo Square.”

Ghirardelli’s ice cream sundae menu is about as traditional as they come, combining basic Dreyer’s ice cream flavors including vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, cookies ‘n cream, cookie dough, and mint chip with hot fudge, caramel, brownies, whipped cream, maraschino cherries, cookies, and/or nuts. Most of the sundaes are topped with a single Ghirardelli chocolate square, though a strawberry hot fudge sundae has a chocolate-dipped strawberry on top, instead. The Mint Bliss Hot Fudge Sundae we tried combined mint and chocolate ice creams with dark chocolate fudge and a dark chocolate mint square – it was delicious, though not amazing in any way.