19805 Crawford AvenueWe didn’t plan on ice cream but how could you pass this up?
We were in Flossmoor, IL for the annual Ladybug figure skating competition at the Homewood-Flossmoore Ice Arena.
J and L had been in town since Wednesday. B and I met them there Saturday morning for L’s final skate of the competition.
My parents were also there and even though we needed to get back to Kalamazoo for a birthday party, I asked if we could go to lunch with my parents at a Buona nearby.
Lunch was good and the grandparents got to spend some time with the kids. They don’t see L as much at competitions because she skates a lot more than B and she hangs out with her friends so even 40 minutes sitting at a restaurant is good for everyone.
I knew as soon as we pulled in to the parking lot at Buona that we’d be getting ice cream because right next door is a brightly painted Chicago institution.
The Original Rainbow Cone is known throughout Chicagoland for it’s unique rainbow cone and rainbow cone cakes consisting of five layers of ice cream (orange sherbet, pistachio, Palmer House, strawberry and chocolate). The original location was a small shack on the corner of 92nd and Western in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood (there’s still a location there though it’s not the original structure). In the last 100 years, the small ice cream shop has expanded to about 30 locations with the majority being in the Chicago area. There is one Michigan location right now in New Buffalo.
The Flossmoor location of The Original Rainbow Cone opened last summer on Crawford Avenue just north of Vollmer Road. It shares a parking lot with the Buona in the Meijer parking lot on the corner. The building is really hard to miss. It’s a large pink building with white polka dots and a giant ice cream cone in the center of the awning.
J grew up on Original Rainbow Cone cakes for birthday’s in her family but I can only remember one other time stopping at one.
After we finished lunch, we walked next door. There was actually a coupon on the Buona receipt for $5 off $15 so how could we pass that up?
The shop isn’t set up like a typical ice cream shop. There is no cooler with all the flavors near the order counter. Instead, there are menu boards hanging above the counter and signs on the counter with the flavor options.
There is one display case that has cakes and cake slices that you can take home. J was feeling nostalgic and wanted an Original Rainbow Cone cake slice but she wasn’t really hungry at the time and an ice cream cake wouldn’t have made it back to Michigan.
It ended up being just B, my mom and me. None of us got Rainbow Cones. In fact, none of us got cones. We all went with scoops in a dish and all stuck to one scoop….except me who got two just so we could get to the $15 we needed to use the coupon because….don’t they call that girl math?
B did his usual and got the Superman. This ice cream is usually three colors, blue, yellow, and red but, as B noted, there wasn’t much red. I think he found a little sliver of it near the bottom. Didn’t really matter though. It’s the blue he really likes and had no complaints after not being able to find any red.
I also went boring and got two scoops of Cookie Dough. They put it in two different cups for some reason but that was fine. I thought maybe I’d share but B didn’t want any once he was done with his.
Obviously, it’s April and not really ice cream season yet so there wasn’t anyone else in the place while we were there. We grabbed a spot at a table and ate before getting back on the road. There’s not a ton of space and I’m sure when it’s super busy in the summertime seats are harder to come by but early in the day on a Saturday in April we were good.
If the inside space is full, there’s also some outdoor seating with less communal options.
There’s obviously so much more to The Original Rainbow Cone that what we got. We treated it like any other ice cream shop which is boring and not the way to do it, but honestly, we were all so full from out lunch that no one wanted a lot of ice cream.
The Original Rainbow Cone is so unique and I feel bad for not featuring that here but you just have to take my word for it. If you see it, stop and get a Rainbow Cone. It’s truly a unique experience. Or, if you’re boring like us, get the ice cream you’d get anywhere else…it’s still a Chicago tradition.