The Forgotten Ice Cream Chain That Had 2 More Flavors Than Baskin-Robbins

In 1953, Baskin-Robbins rebranded itself around the idea of "31 flavors" — one for every day of the month — and baked the number into its identity. The idea came from Carson/ Roberts, an ad agency that would later fold into Ogilvy & Mather, and it proved to be one of the most enduring bits of food marketing in America. More than seventy years later, the "31" still sits proudly inside the company's pink-and-blue logo, instantly recognizable across the world. But if proof was ever needed that clever branding alone couldn't guarantee survival, look no further than another ice cream chain that put its own number front and center: Bresler's 33 Flavors.

Founded in 1927 and once boasting over 300 franchises, the one-time ice-cream giants shut shop in 2007. Like many mall and food court favorites of the time, Bresler's has melted away into obscurity since. Bresler's story began at the onset of the Great Depression, when brothers William and David Bresler, inspired by a street vendor in New Orleans, started selling ice cream from a cart in Chicago's Lincoln Park.

What began as a small wholesale operation slowly grew, with the company opening a fast-food chain, Henry's Hamburgers, in 1954 (one still remains operational in Michigan). The burger chain gave Bresler's an outlet for its ice cream and shakes. Ownership of the ice cream business shifted several times over the decades. In 1987, the family sold to Oberweis Dairy, which rebranded the chain as Bresler's Ice Cream, before CoolBrands International took over in 1995 and briefly took the brand overseas, opening branches in Israel and Egypt.

Like Baskin-Robbins, which is known for a wide range of flavors, Bresler's leaned hard on variety. and the menu was filled with both classics and eccentric experiments. Alongside safe bets like Chocolate Chip, Pistachio, and Rocky Road, customers could order flavors with names straight out of a carnival sideshow — Licorice Voo-Doo and Kitchen Sink among them. An X user wrote, "This one hurts. We were definitely Team Bresler's over Baskin-Robbins — better ice cream, better flavors (which seemed to rotate a little more than BR, so there were always new things to try)".

Trying to keep pace with evolving trends and tastes, Bresler's jumped on the fast-growing frozen yogurt trend in the 1990s. But, despite multiple interventions and reinventions, Bresler's never regained its former glory — and by 2007, the brand had disappeared entirely.

Though they have largely vanished from shopping malls and memory by now, Bresler's still lingers in collective nostalgia, at least among those who grew up near one. A commenter on Reddit's r/nostalgia thread captures it perfectly: "Our mall's Waldenbooks was across from a Bressler's 33 Flavors ice cream shop. I'd give anything to smell the intoxicating combination of new books and fresh waffle cones again!"