Thrifty (and Other Rite-Aid Legacy Brands) Ice Cream

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Dean
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Re: Thrifty (and Other Rite-Aid Legacy Brands) Ice Cream

Post by Dean »

thanks for the info luckysaver!

I also mentioned to the clerk the OLD prices from years back for a cone...and she said she honestly hears about 'em every day!

Still mid-80s, the pricing was .15 for a single scoop, .30 for a double, and .45 for a triple.

Before my time...they had been .05, .10 and .15
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Re: Thrifty (and Other Rite-Aid Legacy Brands) Ice Cream

Post by Super S »

Dean wrote:
luckysaver wrote:All California Rite Aids sell Thrifty Ice Cream - prepacked and a service bar by the cashiers.
As I thought as well.

Yet, visited the Rite Aid @ 11890 Plaza Drive, San Juan Capistrano. It is an old PayLess Drug. NO ice cream served from the counter. They referred me to the Rite Aid across the street (32121 Camino Capistrano)...which is an old Thrifty, and it DOES serve ice cream.

So, is this an unique situation...or do the old PayLess sites NOT serve ice cream?
For what it's worth, the Thrifty store in Kelso, WA DID have an ice cream counter at the front of the store, which went away when this store was switched to Pay 'N Save. There has not been an ice cream counter at all since then, and this store transitioned into PayLess, and is still open as Rite Aid. I do not recall any original-build PayLess stores in the northwest serving ice cream at all.
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Re: Thrifty (and Other Rite-Aid Legacy Brands) Ice Cream

Post by DHilliard »

From everything that I've seen (at least in California), the only Rite-Aids with an ice cream counter are converted Thrifty's. PayLess never had them, and Rite-Aid never went to the trouble and expense of putting them in where they didn't already exist. (My home town had both before the buyout, and Rite-Aid had started moving in on its own, so there was a brief period when there were THREE Rite-Aids off the main drag within the space of a mile! Two of them still exist, one was a Dollar Tree last time I visited.)

As an aside - I worked very briefly as an ice cream dipper for Thrifty's one summer. Worst retail job I ever had; it's no joke to a 16-year-old having to manhandle 50lb, freezing-cold cartons off a ten-foot-high shelf and then haul them from one end of the store to the other ten+ times a shift (and we weren't allowed to use a shopping cart - you carried the stuff up.) All for what worked out to, after taxes and union dues, about $2.00 an hour.
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Re: Thrifty (and Other Rite-Aid Legacy Brands) Ice Cream

Post by steps »

Saw an ice cream truck a few days ago advertising "8 flavors of Thrifty ice cream" with a HUGE Thrifty ice cream decal. I was a bit surprised to see that! Maybe Thrifty ice cream is very popular with hispanics?
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TheStranger
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Re: Thrifty (and Other Rite-Aid Legacy Brands) Ice Cream

Post by TheStranger »

DHilliard wrote:From everything that I've seen (at least in California), the only Rite-Aids with an ice cream counter are converted Thrifty's. PayLess never had them, and Rite-Aid never went to the trouble and expense of putting them in where they didn't already exist.
I know of at least two newer Rite Aids from the last 7-8 years in Sacramento (the former Lucky/Albertsons along J Street in East Sacramento, new-build store at Howe/Cottage in Arden) that have the ice cream counter.
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Re: Thrifty (and Other Rite-Aid Legacy Brands) Ice Cream

Post by pseudo3d »

According to Tiger Droppings, K&B's ice cream was made at their distribution facility in Elmwood facility. The Rite Aid brand ice cream isn't the same thing. (I know, I know--your post was made over 7 years ago)
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Re: Thrifty (and Other Rite-Aid Legacy Brands) Ice Cream

Post by Super S »

With the possibility of Walgreens and Rite Aid merging in the not too distant future, I wonder what could happen to the Thrifty Ice Cream brand. Walgreens does have their own line of dairy products but it's all prepackaged stuff. Rite Aid seemed more open to retaining elements of the stores that they acquired, while Walgreens pretty much has a set way they seem to do things.

I have always found it interesting that they don't at least sell the prepackaged ice cream in the former Thrifty stores here in Washington. It may be because the Thrifty name did not have as high of a market share as it did in California, but still, the Kelso store did in fact have the ice cream counter at one point in time, and a lot of private label products were labeled "Thrifty Payless" until Rite Aid took over...
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Re: Thrifty (and Other Rite-Aid Legacy Brands) Ice Cream

Post by storewanderer »

I found Thrifty Ice Cream at a Rite Aid in Hillsboro, OR (prepackaged only) last year. I was really surprised to see it, I did not think it was distributed in OR and didn't see it at the other couple Rite Aids I went into.



2021 NW 185th Avenue

Hillsboro, OR 97124

Rite Aid expanded the distribution of Thrifty Ice Cream. In the early 1990's when we had Thrifty in Reno, they had an ice cream counter but it sold Model Dairy Ice Cream and they had no freezer for prepackaged ice cream in the stores. When Rite Aid came to Reno in the late 1990's, the new stores were built with Thrifty Ice Cream counters selling actual Thrifty Ice Cream and also had the prepackaged stuff.

Also in the mid 1990's I encountered a Thrifty somewhere way up north in NorCal (Mount Shasta I think) and it had an ice cream counter too but again not selling Thrifty Ice Cream but selling "Umpqua" ice cream. That store since closed but the former Payless across the street offers actual Thrifty Ice Cream now.

I am under the impression Thrifty had a certain distribution "range" for its ice cream and that is why places like rural NorCal and Reno did not have the actual Thrifty Ice Cream under Thrifty. Why Rite Aid made the decision to expand the distribution I do not know.
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Re: Thrifty (and Other Rite-Aid Legacy Brands) Ice Cream

Post by Super S »

storewanderer wrote:I found Thrifty Ice Cream at a Rite Aid in Hillsboro, OR (prepackaged only) last year. I was really surprised to see it, I did not think it was distributed in OR and didn't see it at the other couple Rite Aids I went into.



2021 NW 185th Avenue

Hillsboro, OR 97124

Rite Aid expanded the distribution of Thrifty Ice Cream. In the early 1990's when we had Thrifty in Reno, they had an ice cream counter but it sold Model Dairy Ice Cream and they had no freezer for prepackaged ice cream in the stores. When Rite Aid came to Reno in the late 1990's, the new stores were built with Thrifty Ice Cream counters selling actual Thrifty Ice Cream and also had the prepackaged stuff.

Also in the mid 1990's I encountered a Thrifty somewhere way up north in NorCal (Mount Shasta I think) and it had an ice cream counter too but again not selling Thrifty Ice Cream but selling "Umpqua" ice cream. That store since closed but the former Payless across the street offers actual Thrifty Ice Cream now.

I am under the impression Thrifty had a certain distribution "range" for its ice cream and that is why places like rural NorCal and Reno did not have the actual Thrifty Ice Cream under Thrifty. Why Rite Aid made the decision to expand the distribution I do not know.
Interesting. I have not seen Thrifty Ice Cream at all since the Kelso Thrifty became a Pay 'N Save.

The distribution range may have made sense, but doesn't explain how a store all the way up in Washington had the stuff though. A drugstore chain doesn't typically have the need for refrigerated trucks but would still need them to ship ice cream.

For what it's worth, I do not remember the Thrifty store in Boise having an ice cream counter at all, at least in the mid 1980s. But I do remember that one still having the tube tester during that time.
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Re: Thrifty (and Other Rite-Aid Legacy Brands) Ice Cream

Post by storewanderer »

I wonder if somewhere along the way, before my time, Thrifty was distributing its own ice cream to a wider geographic range of stores. I know the Reno-Plumb Lane and also Carson City Thrifty Stores both had large walk in freezers in their back rooms which I found odd because they did not have the usual ice cream program with prepack, just the counter supplied by a vendor. There was also no sign of the typical coffin freezer case in either of those Thrifty Stores for ice cream like you would have seen in CA.
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Re: Thrifty (and Other Rite-Aid Legacy Brands) Ice Cream

Post by dooneyt63 »

If indeed, as it appears, the Walgreens merger is approved, I fear for Thrifty Ice Cream whether dipped or prepackaged. Walgreens, especially since the Boots Alliance merger, seems intent on obliterating much of its past. Walgreens itself was well-known for its ice cream which was a centerpiece feature of its foodservice outlets and sold prepackaged. The Flagler Street store in Miami featured one of the company's ice cream plants when all Walgreens Ice Cream was produced by the company. They are now using a contract vendor, and the ice cream is generally branded Good & Delish, a brand picked up and retooled from their Duane Reade stores and applied to most non-Nice branded Walgreens food products. In promotional literature and canned company history remarks, Walgreens still touts their "invention" of the milkshake. Though oft-mentioned, they have done nothing to bring an ice cream emphasis or food service of that type back to their stores. A Rite Aid takeover would likely result in the dumping of all Rite Aid heritage brands, and it seems plausible that Thrifty Ice Cream and the old school counters could quickly become a thing of the past. Though their store execution is often uneven, I have appreciated the fact that Rite Aid has clung to more decor, store configurations, and traditions of its predecessor stores than have Walgreens or CVS. I am surprised the FTC seems to be looking so benevolently on this merger. The US is an awfully big place to have just two major pharmacy chains, especially since Target just sold and farmed out their pharmacy operation to CVS. The bland sameness of so much current retail stands in stark contrast to the variety rich, beautifully executed stores we so often extol on this site.
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Re: Thrifty (and Other Rite-Aid Legacy Brands) Ice Cream

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We can hope the Thrifty Ice Cream will be kept in some form. It was the only thing Rite Aid ever "acquired" that it actually kept the name of...

I have noticed it in more stores lately. I have noticed it in the cartons at Seafood City in NorCal, also the large 5 gallon tubs (only in Vanilla) at Smart & Final in Nevada.

It looks to me like some efforts are being made to take this ice cream and sell it at more places than just Rite Aid. I think the brand has value and I would expect it to be sold, not closed or eliminated. As to the likelihood of Walgreens continuing to operate an ice cream plant, yes it seems far fetched, but who would have thought Rite Aid would have kept operating an ice cream plant either? They've done it now for 18 years.

There is also the topic of Walgreens/Rite Aid divesting stores, who will they divest stores to, and what banner will those stores have if they are sold to someone who currently has no drugstores... this Thrifty name is one of the few acquired names Rite Aid has kept active. They actually sold the Payless name, I wonder about all of the other names they acquired. http://www.paylessdrug.com/
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