Formerly: Rainbow Lodge
Chicago, Illinois · Founded 1926 · Building: circa 1930 current building; original stand opened in 1926
Chicago's 1926 Rainbow Cone, now at its circa-1930 Beverly building, remains known for its signature five-flavor ice cream sliced onto one cone.
Original Rainbow Cone operates at 9233 South Western Avenue in Chicago's Beverly neighborhood. Joe and Katherine Sapp opened its predecessor, Rainbow Lodge, in August 1926 in a small shack across the street from the present location. Four years later, the Sapps built and moved into the familiar pink two-story building, where the business continues to serve its signature sliced five-flavor cone.
Joe and Katherine Sapp opened Rainbow Lodge in a small shack near 92nd Street and Western Avenue in Chicago's Beverly area. The original business sold ice cream, sundaes, shakes, sandwiches, and prepared food.
Source: WBEZ, "Rainbow Cone marks 100th anniversary"; WTTW, "Original Rainbow Cone Turns 100"
Joe Sapp developed the signature Rainbow Cone: five sliced layers of chocolate, strawberry, Palmer House, pistachio, and orange sherbet served on one cone.
Source: Original Rainbow Cone, "Our Story"; WBEZ, "Rainbow Cone marks 100th anniversary"
The Sapps built a larger two-story pink location across the street from the original shack and moved Rainbow Cone into the present 9233 South Western Avenue building.
Source: WBEZ, "Rainbow Cone marks 100th anniversary"; CBS News Chicago, "The Original Rainbow Cone ice cream shop broken into"
Lynn Sapp took over the family business.
Source: WBEZ, "Rainbow Cone marks 100th anniversary"
Buona Companies came aboard as an ownership and growth partner with the Sapp family, beginning a broader expansion of the Rainbow Cone brand.
Source: WTTW, "Original Rainbow Cone Turns 100"; WBEZ, "Rainbow Cone marks 100th anniversary"; Beverly Area Planning Association, "The Original Rainbow Cone Grows Into Legend"
The Sapp–Buonavolanto partnership opened new Rainbow Cone locations in Lombard and Darien after using an ice-cream truck during the pandemic to test broader demand.
Source: Beverly Area Planning Association, "The Original Rainbow Cone Grows Into Legend"
Original Rainbow Cone celebrated its 100th anniversary while continuing to operate at the Beverly flagship and expand through additional locations and ice-cream trucks.
Source: WTTW, "Original Rainbow Cone Turns 100"; WBEZ, "Rainbow Cone marks 100th anniversary"; Original Rainbow Cone official website
Every claim gets rated. A business's own website can never earn "documented."
Recent WBEZ and WTTW reporting, along with the business's official history, identify Joe and Katherine Sapp as founders and date the original Rainbow Lodge opening to 1926.
The original 1926 Rainbow Lodge was a small shack across the street from the current flagship. The Sapps built and moved to the present pink building around 1930.
The official business history and independent Chicago coverage consistently identify five sliced layers—chocolate, strawberry, Palmer House, pistachio, and orange sherbet—served on the signature cone.
The business and Chicago reporting consistently credit Joe Sapp with creating the unusual sliced five-flavor cone in 1926. This review did not retrieve a contemporaneous menu, advertisement, patent, or trademark record establishing priority over every comparable ice-cream-serving method, so the invention claim is plausible rather than documented.
WBEZ reports that the original flavor order remains chocolate, strawberry, Palmer House, pistachio, and orange sherbet, and the official site continues to market those five flavors. The company now also offers additional combinations and formats, so the claim applies to the classic signature cone rather than every product sold.
The business describes itself as locally and family owned, while WTTW and WBEZ report that Buona Companies became a co-owner/growth partner in 2018 with continuing Sapp family involvement. The claim is accurate as a family-associated partnership but requires corporate records to define the exact present ownership shares and operating entity.
The candidate supplied this claim, but this review did not locate a Taste of Chicago program, Chicago newspaper report, festival archive, or reliable historical source confirming that Rainbow Cone participated in the inaugural 1980 event.
Original Rainbow Cone first opened at the present pink building on South Western Avenue in 1926.
The first 1926 operation, called Rainbow Lodge, was a small shack across the street from the present flagship. The Sapps built and moved into the current 9233 South Western Avenue building around 1930.
Source: WBEZ, "Rainbow Cone marks 100th anniversary"; WTTW, "Original Rainbow Cone Turns 100"
Original Rainbow Cone is located at 9217 South Western Avenue.
Current official, news, and neighborhood sources identify the original Beverly flagship at 9233 South Western Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.
Source: WBEZ, "Rainbow Cone marks 100th anniversary"; CBS News Chicago, "The Original Rainbow Cone ice cream shop broken into"; Beverly Area Planning Association, "The Original Rainbow Cone Grows Into Legend"
Buona Companies first partnered with Rainbow Cone in 2019.
Recent reporting identifies Buona Companies as becoming an ownership and growth partner with the Sapp family in 2018.
Source: WTTW, "Original Rainbow Cone Turns 100"; WBEZ, "Rainbow Cone marks 100th anniversary"
Original Rainbow Cone is proven to have invented sliced ice cream on a cone.
The Sapps are widely credited with creating Rainbow Cone's sliced five-flavor cone, but this review did not locate a contemporaneous record proving that the business invented the technique ahead of all comparable examples.
Source: Original Rainbow Cone, "Our Story"; WBEZ, "Rainbow Cone marks 100th anniversary"
Rainbow Cone endured by turning an unusual service method into a Chicago tradition and then adapting its ownership and distribution without abandoning the flagship. Lynn Sapp carried the family operation into a third generation, and the 2018 partnership with Buona Companies expanded the brand through stand-alone shops, Buona Beef locations, trucks, cakes, and seasonal events while preserving the original Beverly store.
Original Rainbow Cone in Chicago, Illinois, began in August 1926 when Joe and Katherine Sapp opened Rainbow Lodge in a small shack near 92nd Street and Western Avenue. Joe created its famous cone by slicing five flavors—chocolate, strawberry, Palmer House, pistachio, and orange sherbet—onto one cone. Around 1930, the Sapps moved across the street into the pink building at 9233 South Western Avenue, where the original shop still operates.
Original Rainbow Cone says founder Joe Sapp developed its signature dessert by slicing five ice-cream flavors onto a cone rather than scooping them. The method made it possible to stack several flavors in a stable layered cone, and the original combination remains chocolate, strawberry, Palmer House, pistachio, and orange sherbet.
No verified Chicago oldest-ice-cream-parlor title can be assigned to Original Rainbow Cone from the evidence reviewed. The business opened in 1926 and is among Chicago's long-running ice-cream institutions, but this review did not conduct a citywide comparison of earlier confectioneries, dairies, soda fountains, and ice-cream parlors. Its importance lies in its distinct five-sliced-flavor cone and century-long Beverly lineage.
The original Rainbow Cone location is at 9233 South Western Avenue in Chicago's Beverly neighborhood. The first 1926 Rainbow Lodge stood in a small shack across the street before the Sapps built the current pink flagship building around 1930.
9233 S Western Ave, Chicago, IL 60643
The original Beverly Rainbow Cone is at 9233 South Western Avenue. Check the official locations page for current flagship hours, seasonal service, catering, truck stops, and other Chicago-area locations.