The Best Nostalgic Ice Cream Truck Treats of All Time, Ranked

There’s nothing like the smell of a wooden spoon drenched in sticky melted ice cream to transport us back to elementary school. “We didn’t have a regular ice cream man…but we did have something called the ‘Schwan’s man,’” explains commerce director Nicole Briese. “And it wasn’t just ice cream (he sold a mean frozen chicken patty), but I did live for the vanilla fudge ice cream cups.” We’d also be remiss not to mention Popsicle’s Cookies and Cream cup—IYKYK.

“Outrageous Orange Nestlé Push-Up pops were literally all I ate,” says assistant editor Stephanie Meraz. “My grandpa would always buy them for me, and I became instantly addicted to their sweet-tart flavor. It was just so fun and interactive to slide my pop up, and it was always a bummer to get to the end of it.” Amen to that.

Can we get a woot woot for Popsicle’s Reckless Rainbow Pop-Ups (which, TBH, needed a third stripe of raspberry ice) and the Flintstones Push-Up pops?

An oldie but a goody. “My house wasn’t in an ice cream truck neighborhood, but when I’d go to friends’ houses, I always made sure I had money for an ice cream sandwich, because for some reason it always tasted better from a truck,” asserts commerce editor Liv Kappler. Wasn’t the best part licking away at the outer rim of ice cream until the cookie got soggy and stuck to your fingers? Just us?

You’re either a Nestlé Drumstick girl or a King Cone queen, but we’re betting most of us were the latter as kids since there were fewer peanuts to pick off. This timeless combo of vanilla ice cream, chocolatey coating and roasted peanuts on a sugar cone still exists, but the King Cone is now about a third of its former size. Sigh, nothing is sacred.

Normally, orange was the last flavor on your radar across the board, whether you were shopping Popsicles, Gatorade or candy. (With grape, sour apple and blue raspberry on the menu, who could blame you, kid?) But when creamy vanilla ice cream was there to curb the acidic, grown-uppy flavor of the orange sherbet, it hit just right. RIP, raspberry Creamsicles.

It’s no surprise that these micro-sized beads of lemon-lime (or a super sour mix of lemon, orange and raspberry) ice popped off during Dippin’ Dots’ heyday. They came in a cup with a hole on top, so you could guzzle the treat down at lightning speed. Perhaps you were a bigger fan of Popsicle’s Micropops, a tower of strawberry, blue raspberry and lemon ice beads that you’d push up in a tube as you ate.

OK, so we picked the peanuts off our King Cones, but we wouldn’t let a single almond crumble on these now retired ice cream bars go to waste. “I was a 6-year-old trapped in a 60-year-old’s body because I freaking loved Toasted Almond bars,” recalls wellness director Sarah Stiefvater. “So nutty and sugary, but they were apparently discontinued two months ago?!” Like we said, nothing is sacred, friends.

Nowadays, you treat yourself to an annual snow cone, if that, at the town carnival. Then, you couldn’t get enough of these pre-packaged handhelds, striped with a rainbow of strawberry-, blue raspberry- and lemon-flavored ice. Like slushed ice, Snow Cones are the ultimate defense against summer’s sweltering heat. Popsicle nixed them from their roster back in 2020, but our fingers are crossed for a comeback. (Nostalgia is all the rage, right?)

Crispy cookie + vanilla ice cream + chocolate coating + an edible imprint of The Rock = the recipe for every ’90s boy’s go-to order. Our inner child was semi-delighted to hear that Good Humor released WWE Superstars Cookie Sandwiches in 2020 (so close to the O.G. and yet…not the same), only to discontinue them as quickly as they came. Why must you toy with our emotions, ice cream gods?

Bomb Pop, Hyper Stripe, Mega Missile—whatever you called this patriotic pop, it was a consistently delicious order that you could depend on. We may or may not have been known to eat the cherry and blue raspberry sections first, saving the ever-refreshing lemon ice for last. (P.S.: We’re both horrified and wistful upon finding out that there was a Fire N’ Ice version of the treat that had hot cinnamon, cotton candy and sour green apple ices. Even the snack abominations of the ’90s somehow sound appetizing.)

Technically the Good Humor man was toting “premium cookie sandwiches,” but we’ll always call these Chipwiches, no matter the brand. (The official Chipwich made its return in 2018—most competitors don’t have a ring of crunchy chocolate chips.) We have it on good authority that the Trader Joe’s copycat is pretty darn close to the O.G. Can we give it up for the Klondike Oreo ice cream cookie sandwich too? It was always near impossible to choose between them.

Snoopy, Sonic, Scooby-Doo, Spider-Man, Tweety—no matter your mascot of choice, there was an ice pop of its face, complete with gumball eyes. And they *never* looked like the picture, not that we cared; in fact, their defects were part of the fun. “I always loved the surprise and delight of unwrapping a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle or Hello Kitty bar to see just how far from the real deal those two looked,” says VP of editorial Candace Davison.

She wasn’t the only one: “I was such a sucker for the Powerpuff Girls Bubbles pop, even though the eyeballs were always wonky. And if they didn’t have her, it was SpongeBob—equally as terrifying,” adds editorial assistant Delia Curtis.

Speaking of gumballs, there’s no way this vintage candy has the same chokehold on Kids These Days™ the way it did us. (Cavities and choking were not nearly as feared, we guess.) The chewy delight was the cherry on top—or on the bottom, rather—of this iconic cherry slushed ice. For double the bubble, there was the 2-Ball Screwball. If you preferred your cherry ice on a stick, Bubble Play’s baseball-mitt-shaped bar was the one for you, complete with a baseball gumball. Did anyone manage to find the elusive blue raspberry Screwball?

Our TVs were constantly asking us what we’d do for a Klondike Bar, even though the answer was, “nothing, where are the Choco Tacos?” After a nearly 40-year reign, this unique, minimally messy confection was yanked off shelves by its own makers, despite having been a steadily popular item. (OK, boomers.) “The chocolate-y coating! The chewy, moldable taco! The chopped nuts that I wished were sprinkles! It was the dessert that ate like a meal,” says VP of editorial Candace Davison.

Of course, the death of the Choco Taco broke the internet. Klondike claims to be working on reviving the treat for ice cream truck distribution, but we’ll believe it when we see it—Mom told us not to get our hopes up.