soft serve in Los Angeles?

I’ve been thinking a lot about soft serve ice cream lately. It’s not so readily available here, it seems. I wonder if Dessert Oasis can help me find the best that LA has…?

-Tyler

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Dear Tyler,

I did a bit of research for your question, since you are correct: soft serve ice cream is not readily available in Los Angeles – the land of frozen yogurt.  In fact, before last week, I’d only had it at the LA Zoo (in a stand next to the giraffes – vanilla, chocolate or swirl available).

I did find some pretty great places as well as some disappointments:

Whipp’d LA – Known for their Dole pineapple soft serve which is only available at the Dole plantation, Disneyland and here! I’m allergic to pineapple, but I popped an allergy pill, chugged some water and just did it. It was refreshing (and tasted forbidden), and I’m still alive to tell the tale. (ps: they have flavors other than pineapple too)

Honeymee – Only one flavor here: milk.  Order it with honey swirled in or a chunk of fresh honeycomb on top.  The milk flavor is super fresh tasting and isn’t very sweet so it perfectly offsets the sweet honey.  This is a great treat and I highly recommend trying it, but probs not what you are imagining when craving soft serve.

Bob’s Freeze in East LA – In case you weren’t aware, I don’t like vanilla ice cream. Bob’s Freeze only serves vanilla soft serve. Their old school dip top is pretty rich though and almost *almost* makes the vanilla ok.  But if you’re a vanilla lover, then this place is worth the trip. You might also want to try a vinilla mershmalloe shake or maybe a Suicide slush float (vanilla soft serve in a bowl with ALL flavors of slush dumped on top).

Foster’s Freeze – Their hand-written sign states that they have tacos, coffee, hot chocolate and tuna sandwich.  Their printed sign states that they have chocolate soft serve.  They do not.

Gill’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream (at the Original Farmers’ Market) – This is where you go in LA to get soft serve.  Vanilla or chocolate or swirl.  Dip top in a bunch of flavors including my fave, butterscotch. Big portions, colorful drawings, old timey freezer. The best. They’ve been around for 78 years, so they know what they’re doing!

Let me know where you end up and thanks for asking!!

Officially soft-swirled,
Dessert Oasis

Have a dessert question?  Email me at courtneysconza@gmail.com – from funnel cakes to fondue fountains, if it has sugar, I’ve probably eaten it.