The Original Rainbow Cone

Founded in Chicago, Illinois back in 1926, The Original Rainbow Cone opened its first California location on Valentine’s Day 2025 in a small Cypress plaza, close to Buena Park and Stanton at Orange County’s westernmost edge. Selling ice cream by the cup, cone, pint, quart, and cake, it also fries fresh mini-donuts and sells ice cream sandwiches with cookies.

The small chain’s namesake dessert is at once very simple and somewhat novel by local standards: For $7, you get a cup or cone built with five different but complementary “slices” of ice cream, with the option to upgrade to a larger waffle cone for an extra dollar. Similar to the novelty of Dippin’ Dots at its prime, the difference here is the experience of eating a stack of ice cream flavors, which may challenge ardent ice cream lickers to consider simply biting the slices. That the flavors always come stacked in a specific order may encourage people to taste the flavors in that way, too, instead of hunting around for whichever of several scoops first catches the eye or spoon in a bowl.

You can choose from five rainbow cones – “The Original” or four “sliced creations.” Shown above, The Original appears on most of the chain’s marketing, and layers orange sherbet, pistachio almond, Palmer House (vanilla/cherries/walnuts), strawberry, and chocolate, while the Cosmic Birthday, Minty City, and Orange Dream “sliced creations” alternate five slices of two flavors, and Chocolate Obsession has five slices with four flavors. You’re allowed to customize any of these sliced cones by removing or adding layers from its pre-existing flavors, but can’t add others or create your own five-slice sampler. Sauce and fruit-topped sundaes, cones/cups with 1-3 traditional scoops, and milkshakes are also available, as are mini-donuts with sundae-like toppings.