Updated December 205
Eighteen years. Same city, same question — who makes the best ice cream in Cincinnati — and eighteen years running, Cincinnati has given the same answer: Graeter's. CityBeat just announced its 2025 Best of Cincinnati Reader Pick for Best Ice Cream, and for the eighteenth consecutive year, that title belongs to us.
Cincinnati just named us Best Ice Cream, again
From 2009 all the way through this year's vote, Graeter's has topped CityBeat's Best Ice Cream category without interruption. That's not a fluke or a one-time nod — it's eighteen straight years of Cincinnatians tasting what's out there and coming back to us. This one means something different than most awards, too. It's not a critic's opinion or an industry panel. It's a reader pick — decided by the very people who've been scooping us into their freezers, their family gatherings, and their Tuesday-night cravings for nearly two decades of voting.
Why the answer never changes
We'd love to tell you we have some flashy secret, but the truth is simpler and a lot more stubborn than that. We've been making ice cream the same demanding way since 1870, and we've never been in a hurry to change it. While the industry chased speed and shortcuts, we stuck with our 155-year-old French Pot process — small batches, 2.5 gallons at a time, churned slow enough to keep every bit of density and flavor intact.
That stubbornness is exactly why the streak exists. You can't fake eighteen years of consistency. You can only earn it, one small batch at a time.
Quality you can actually taste
Awards are nice, but we know the real vote happens with a spoon. Every pint starts with superior ingredients — real cream, real fruit, and chocolate we hand-chip into those oversized pieces we're a little obsessed with. Nothing about the process is designed to be fast. It's designed to be right.
- Small-batch French Pot churning for a denser, richer texture
- Hand-packed pints, sealed with the same care since day one
- Chocolate chips made from melting and hand-chipping whole chocolate bars
- No shortcuts, no matter how tempting the industry trends get
When people vote for us year after year, they're really voting for that process — for the difference you can taste between something mass-produced and something hand packed with joy.
A family tradition, scoop after scoop
This win also belongs to the families who've made Graeter's part of their own traditions. Birthdays, first dates, graduation nights, Sunday drives to the scoop shop — for generations, Cincinnati has folded us into the moments that matter. Being family-owned since 1870 means we've grown up alongside the very people voting for us, and that kind of loyalty runs both ways. We don't take eighteen years of trust lightly.
Taste it for yourself
If you haven't tasted what's kept Cincinnati coming back for eighteen straight years, there's no better time to find out. Stop by your neighborhood scoop shop, or order online and have a taste of the tradition delivered straight to your door. Either way, you'll understand exactly why the city keeps giving us the same answer, year after year. Taste the Graetest, and see what all the loyalty is about.
