On Jeopardy tonight there was a question about frozen drinks at 7-11. A contestant answered “ICEE” which was declared wrong, the correct answer being (apparently) “Slurpee”.
I would swear I remember, as a kid (mid to late '60s), buying ICEEs at 7-11. Googling ICEE it brought up the logo and the bear icon I remember so well. The Slurpee cup not so much. Also I’m sure I was shopping at 7-11.
Am I really this wrong about this? Anyone else remember ICEEs at 7-11?
I only remember Slurpee at 7-11. A quick shows the trademark registered in May 1966. I also see that the trademark was then licensed from ICEE by 7-11 in 1967. Are you maybe old enough to remember the transition to the trademarked name at 7-11?
I remember both Icees and Slurpees back in West Texas. Essentially the same product, just different makers (or so I’ve thought). 7-Elevens definitely all had Slurpees. Some other convenience stores – the old Handy Hut chain immediately springs to mind, dunno if they’re still around – had Icees. We had a Handy Hut close to our house, the Icee logo was a bear, and we children could collect Icee Bear points.
Oh, and just to add, that was also mid-1960s onward for me.
Since this is about drinks, let’s move this to Cafe Society.
Born in '55 for the record. I grew up in Dallas.
I used to get Icees at my local not-a-7-Eleven in San Diego in the '60s. IIRC it was called the Buy-And-Save.
Icees were the best part of going to KMart.
As I remember it, 7-Elevens originally sold Icees, then changed to Slurpees in the late 1960s. The book Oh Thank Heaven! notes that the circa 1966 change coincided with a switch from the original machines manufactured by Mitchell (invented 1959) to ones manufactured by Taylor, and discusses the big promotion Southland did to promote the new product and the newly coined name.
Southland was a Dallas company, and my local store in Texarkana probably was among the first 100 to have Icee machines installed in 1965.
Born 1961 here, and grew up in upstate NY and New England. Have live in/near San Francisco since 1979.
In my experience, 7-11s sell Slurpees. And Icees are almost always not at 7-11s, except for this one time many years ago when I (am pretty sure that I) remember a 7-11 that had an Icee machine. I did a double-take at that. So I guess it’s possible that at least some 7-11s sell or sold Icees.
But yeah, predominantly (maybe almost exclusively) it’s Slurpees and not Icees at 7-11s.
My earliest experiences with convenience stores were in the late 60s and I remember you got Slurpees at 7-11 and Icees at Handy Pantry (which later became Circle K).
This, BTW, was in the Sacramento area.
born in Wisconsin we had icee’s at the stop and go
Ah! I think that’s what my store in San Diego was: a Stop & Go. Anyway, I did a Google Earth search on the location and it’s a 7-Eleven now. I think I’ll pay a visit next time I go back home and demand a Squishee.
Thanks this matches my memory… Although Wikipedia disagrees with us.
Somewhat surprisingly, Wikipedia has a page for Brain Freeze or Ice Cream Headache:
Cold-stimulus headache - Wikipedia.
Interesting, including Mr. Downtown’s post. That may explain why I once saw the 7-11 without a Slurpee machine but with an Icee machine. That was in the early to mid 1970s, in the northeast.
Nobody else had Slush Puppies figure large in their childhoods?
That sounds familiar. But vaguely so, so I don’t think they factored in very much during my childhood.
Yes. I’m originally from upstate NY, and yes, we had Slush Puppies (still do, I think). We also had Icees and Slurpees and Mr. Mistys and Orange Julius(es). I seem to recall that the whole selling point of Slurpees, at least initially, was that they were more of a blended concoction than Icees and Slush Puppies and the rest, which were basically sno-cones in a cup, with really small pieces of ice so you could suck it through a straw.
