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Comment by dr_dshiv | Hacker News Reader

I don’t know, but the cost of a scoop of ice cream in the states is like $4… maybe more. In Amsterdam, you get it everywhere for €1.50 to €2. So, when it is summertime, an ice cream a day is pretty typical consumption. Meaning, it has become more luxury to have ice cream in the states. (Maybe I’m wrong, this is a sense I have, open to correction).

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The quantity of ice cream that is considered a "scoop" is very country dependent. The American scoop is... American.

And volumetric! (Having a hard time seeing people weighing servings at the ice cream parlor, though.)

Yeah, I'm still shocked when I want two flavors and they give me those giant balls...

In Italy we have the opposite problem though. Since the scoop size doesn't have a standard, you might find the server in training and get a gelato that's half the size of the one of your friend, which paid half the price

I live in the US and I don't think I've ever paid $4 for a scoop of ice cream in the US, but I haven't bought a scoop in the last two months, so perhaps the recent supply chain/inflation issues have happened.

There is one place I know that charges $4 for what they call a single scoop, but it is about 3x bigger than any scoop elsewhere, and it's a pricey place in general ($8.50 for a malt).

I paid $5.75 for one (including tax) in Sierra Madre (suburban LA) yesterday.

It depends on where you go. It could cost half that if you went to, like, thrifty ice cream instead of what I'm guessing was a Salt and Straw. To say nothing of the men with bells selling icecream all over LA county on a given day...

Mother Moo

You are right Handel’s was cheaper per scoop

Two kiddie sugar cones yesterday in NH, $4.75 each.

> I don’t know, but the cost of a scoop of ice cream in the states is like $4…

Only in hip ice cream places. $4 is about the going rate for those 1.5 quart (1.4 liter) cartons at the grocery store.

Hip places charge like $15 for a cup of ice cream and do weird (but tasty) gastronomy gimmicks like liquid nitrogen freezing or maltodextrin usage. You pay more than $4 at normie chains like coldstone.

Coldstone serves 5-12oz plus toppings made and mixed on-premise. Something like a food truck cup or cone is closer to $2. Baskin Robbins is perhaps $3 for a one scoop cone. But like the other user said, many Americans would rather buy a half gallon or gallon from a grocery store or c-store for $5 and eat too much of it. :)

The grocery store is always going to be cheaper. $4 is the low end of a single scoop in the bay area. And not for some hipster, plant-based organic ice cream either, this is at a regular parlor like Fenton's.

Dairy Queen. If “regular parlor” is followed by a restaurant not present outside of the bay, it’s not going to be representative.

At the Baskin Robbins closet to SF (Daly City) a single scoop is $3.59. After tax that's pretty close to $4 for the most chain-est ice cream I could think of. (The DQ doesn't have photos of their menu on Google maps).

Dairy Queen doesn't serve ice cream. Not being snobbish or pedantic here – soft serve is a separate kind of product. Dairy Queen doesn't call it ice cream (probably because it legally cannot be)

Baskin Robbins is by far the most ubiquitous ice cream chain in the Bay Area and a single scoop is right around $3 as of a few months ago.

I’m not sure why you mention Fenton’s. I’m only aware of a single location in Oakland and I would describe it as fairly high-end. Perhaps not “hip,” but definitely very “retro” stylized. Very Instagramable. Long lines.

There's not a lot of chains in the bay. This is really the most basic one I have been to.

In MA.

A pint of ben and jerry's has been $5 for me; going up to $6 during supply chain woes.

A good ice cream shop is more like $5, but the cost scaling is weird and you can normally get like 3x more ice cream for 1.2x cost with larger sizes. The scoops are large. Per volume I think its much more expensive in other countries personally.

Typically a scoop in the us is two to three times that in Amsterdam.

You can buy ice cream by the gallon (4.5 litres!!) in the US. It can’t be that expensive! In the UK half a litre (a pint) is considered a lot of ice cream.

5 quarts (4.7 liters) is common size. Yes, it's cheap. But not usually very good quality, though.

In the gallon size that is probably true. Nobody really buys it in that size unless they're feeding a gaggle of children at a birthday party who don't give two shits about how awful the ice cream quality is.

Personally, I prefer my ice cream to have exactly four ingredients: milk, cream, sugar, cocoa. The end. Nothing else. I've had to switch brands a couple times because they cave to pressure to make their chocolate ice cream more creamy. No! I like it a bit dry, it's got cocoa in it! LOL

Me, too! Tends to be a bit more pricey, but well worth it, in my opinion.

> I prefer my ice cream to have exactly four ingredients: milk, cream, sugar, cocoa

No egg yolks?

Not in chocolate ice cream, no. At least, not in the kinds I've liked best. And, I guess, I don't really like eggs in vanilla either. French vanilla just tastes off to me.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that my preferred ice cream style is "philadelphia style"

Are we talking about eating it all yourself or sharing with the entire family?

That's the size it's available in, so either.

I mean, it's icecream. It's good in the freezer for a _long_ time.

You can, but most people don't unless it's for a party or something. Even then, it's almost always by the half gallon (which, of course, isn't actually a full half gallon any more) or pint. The latter becoming more common of late.

Maybe it’s changed, but growing up in Wisconsin those gallon pails of Kemps seemed pretty ubiquitous.

You can usually only find cheap low quality ice cream in gallon sizes.

Used to be 1DM back in my days...

$4? Maybe if you're buying artisanal gelato from SF, West LA or Manhattan. Think Salt and Straw.

Salt & Straw is higher than that. $4 used to be the kids scoop price, but that was like five years ago.

Even Rite Aid is up to like $2/scoop

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