Philadelphia Has The Only Stand-Alone Shop For America's Oldest Ice Cream Company

Philadelphia was one of the most important cities in Colonial America — for a brief time, it even served as the young nation's capital — so it stands to reason that many venerable institutions originated in the City of Brotherly Love. To name a few: The Philadelphia Art Museum is one of the largest art museums in the world; the Philadelphia Orchestra is one of the most prestigious in the country; and America's oldest ice cream company, Bassetts, has its sole physical location in Philadelphia's historic Reading Terminal Market.

Bassetts Ice Cream was established in 1861, a time where there was very little brotherly love to be found in the United States. Perhaps it's fitting that a company selling such a sweet, agreeable product was founded by a peace-loving Quaker. Lewis Dubois Bassett first started making ice cream with a churn powered by his mule. Some of his first flavors wouldn't necessarily fly off the shelves these days, to be sure. (Green tomato ice cream? Sorry, Lew, we had a big lunch.) Still, he established enough of a following to keep his business going. When Reading Terminal Market opened in 1892, Bassett picked up his sticks from his previous home in Trenton, New Jersey and went to Philly. Bassetts has been there ever since, remaining the only original merchant to still have a presence at the Market.

Bassetts sells Philadelphia-style ice cream which, despite the name, is not necessarily the prevailing style in Philadelphia. It gets its name from Augustus Jackson, the Philadelphia native who served as White House chef for Andrew Jackson (no relation) and who popularized the dessert. Unlike other styles of ice cream, such as ultra-dense New England ice cream, Philadelphia-style ice cream doesn't use eggs; resulting in a scoop that's airy, fluffy, and divinely sweet. Some ice cream makers looking to cut corners (such as Friendly's, who makes our least favorite strawberry ice cream) will incorporate a ton of air in the churning process, resulting in an insubstantial product — but that's not what Philadelphia-style ice cream is about. It comes about its lightness honestly.

What flavors might you expect from Bassetts? Well, you'll find the usual suspects (vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, things of that nature), but you'll also find a few unique offerings as well. You may not be able to try the borscht-flavored ice cream they served Soviet premier Nikita Khruschev when he visited America (which was a real thing that happened, apparently), but you can try some mango ice cream, cinnamon ice cream, and even a bit of matcha green tea ice cream if you're feeling fresh. Of course, if you come during the fall, you'll be able to get a scoop or two of pumpkin ice cream.