 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2011) |
Whitey's Ice Cream is an ice-cream parlor chain based in Moline, Illinois. This ice cream has been an icon of the Illinois and Iowa Quad Cities since it was founded in 1933.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2011) |
Whitey's Ice Cream is an ice-cream parlor chain based in Moline, Illinois. This ice cream has been an icon of the Illinois and Iowa Quad Cities since it was founded in 1933.
Chester Lindgren opened the first store on the corner of 16th Street and 23rd Avenue in Moline, Illinois. He was nicknamed "Whitey" due to his white-blonde colored hair. In 1935 Lindgren hired 15-year-old Bob Tunberg, who worked for him throughout high school and several years after. In 1953 Lindgren sold the store to Tunberg.
Tunberg and his wife, Norma, made ice cream during the day, and sold their product in the store at night. In 1979 the business was expanded when a second store opened in Moline, Illinois. [1] After the success of this second store, as well as the addition of several more Illinois stores, the first Iowa store was opened in 1984 in Bettendorf, Iowa.
Whitey's Ice Cream is currently owned by Bob Tunberg's sons, Jeff and Jon Tunberg. They work side by side as co-owners of the company, and the title, president, remains open in honor of their late father, “The Quad-Cities Favorite Ice Cream Man”, who died in 1991. They currently operate nine locations in the Iowa and Illinois Quad Cities. They also maintain a retail stand at the TaxSlayer Center and Modern Woodmen Park during sporting events. Customers may also order the ice cream from Whitey's website, where it can be shipped anywhere in the continental United States.
In 1988, Whitey’s Ice Cream saw a dramatic change with the addition of a Wholesale Department and entrance into the grocery store market. This allowed Whitey’s Ice Cream packaged ice cream to be purchased from many more outlets. The Wholesale Department currently distributes to grocery stores and schools in a 100-mile radius [2] of the Quad Cities, although, it can be purchased at Hy-Vee's as far away as Lincoln, Nebraska, which is approximately 362 miles away from the distribution center in Moline. It is also purchasable at Hy-Vee's in South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Kansas in addition to Iowa and Illinois stores. [3] Stores carrying Whitey’s Ice Cream include, Hy-Vee, Wal-Mart - Sam's Club, Super Target, Jewel, Fareway, SuperValu and Econo Foods.
On January 31, 2019, the location at Coral Ridge Mall in Coralville, Iowa closed down, marking the chain's exit from the Iowa City area. [4] A previous store located in downtown Iowa City announced it was not reopening four year priors due to Whitey's unhappiness with renovations in the building they were leasing. [5]
Whitey's Ice Cream is known for their extra thick shakes and malts, which can be held upside down. This is due to their innovation of high-powered malt machines and careful preparation by trained Whitey's employees. They also credit themselves with the creation of candy bar shakes and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. They also worked to develop a "No Sugar Added" ice cream sweetened with Splenda brand sweetener targeted toward diabetics.
One of Whitey’s newest flavors is Sgt. Camo, which is a camouflage-colored ice cream made from Graham cracker, marshmallow ice cream, and a ribbon of Whitey’s fudge. All profits from the sale of Sgt. Camo are donated to various military veterans groups. Sgt. Camo has been sent to the Pentagon, and also to military and their families before troops are deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Whitey's Ice Cream has been called the "Best in the Midwest" by readers of the Midwest Living Magazine. [6] It has also been featured on the Food Network's Food Finds television show. In 2007 Whitey's Ice Cream was announced as the winner of the Fourth Annual Ice Cream Store of the Year Award known as THE PASSION AWARD given by the Ice Cream University. Whiteys was also voted number one ice cream in the nation by Travel Magazine in September 2014.
The Quad Cities is a region of cities in the U.S. states of Iowa and Illinois: Davenport and Bettendorf in southeastern Iowa, and Rock Island, Moline and East Moline in northwestern Illinois. These cities are the center of the Quad Cities metropolitan area, a region within the Mississippi River Valley, which as of 2023 had a population estimate of 467,817 and a Combined Statistical Area (CSA) population of 474,019, making it the 90th-largest CSA in the nation.
Save A Lot Food Stores Ltd. is an American discount supermarket chain store headquartered in St. Ann, Missouri, in Greater St. Louis. It has about 900 independently owned and operated stores across 32 states in the United States with over $4 billion in annual sales.
Hy-Vee, Inc. is an employee-owned chain of supermarkets in the Midwestern and Southern United States, with more than 280 locations in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wisconsin, with stores planned in Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. Hy-Vee was founded in 1930 by Charles Hyde and David Vredenburg in Beaconsfield, Iowa, in a small brick building known as the Beaconsfield Supply Store, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Schnuck Markets, Inc., doing business as Schnucks, is a supermarket chain. Based in the St. Louis area, the company was founded in 1939 with the opening of a 1,000-square-foot (93 m2) store in north St. Louis and currently operates over 100 stores in four states throughout the Midwest. Schnucks also ran stores under the Logli Supermarkets and Hilander Foods banners. Schnucks is one of the largest privately held supermarket chains in the United States and dominates the St. Louis metro grocery market.
Eagle Food Centers was a chain of supermarkets that operated in Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Illinois for several years. The company was based in Milan, Illinois. The company operated stores under many names, including BOGO'S, Eagle Country Market, Eagle Discount Centers, Eagle Discount Supermarkets, Eagle Food Centers, May's Drug and MEMCO. Eagle also operated stores in Houston known as Eagle Supermarkets until March 1985. The chain held a 6% market share and had 1,100 employees before leaving the area.
SouthPark Mall is a shopping mall located in Moline, Illinois. As Moline is part of the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa, the mall serves the population of these cities. The mall is located southwest of the intersection of Interstate 74 and Illinois Route 5 at 4500 16th Street. SouthPark Mall is one of two regional malls in the Quad Cities area, the other being NorthPark Mall in Davenport, Iowa.
NorthPark Mall is a shopping mall located in Davenport, Iowa. As Davenport is part of the Quad Cities of the mall serves the population of these cities. The mall is located northwest of the intersection of U.S. Highways 61 and 6 at 320 West Kimberly Road. NorthPark Mall is one of two shopping malls operating in the Quad Cities area, the other being SouthPark Mall in Moline, Illinois.
Cub is an American supermarket chain. It operates stores in Minnesota and Illinois. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of United Natural Foods, based in Providence, Rhode Island.
Happy Joe's is an American pizza parlor chain based in Bettendorf, Iowa. The restaurant chain was founded in 1972 by Lawrence Joseph "Happy Joe" Whitty, a former Shakey's Pizza manager. Their United States locations are spread out across the Upper Midwest and Florida, with a location in Egypt, which opened in October 2022. In 2022, Happy Joe's has declared an intent over 10 years to open at least 25 locations across the Middle East and North Africa, including in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. The idea for Happy Joe's came from a combination of a pizza parlor and ice cream palace.
Fareway Stores, Inc. is a Midwest grocery store chain based in Boone, Iowa. It operates 131 grocery store locations in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas, and Missouri.
National Supermarkets was a grocery chain in both the St. Louis, Missouri, and New Orleans, Louisiana, areas of the United States. Both firms were owned by Loblaw Companies of Canada, but in June 1995, they were sold by Loblaw to Schnucks Markets. Immediately after that, per the FTC, Schnucks sold the National New Orleans division to Schwegmann Brothers Giant Supermarkets of Metairie, Louisiana, which later sold them to Great A&P, which finally sold them to Rouse Markets in 2007. National itself had cemented the number two spot in St. Louis by acquiring several former Kroger locations and the Kroger distribution center in the market when the latter exited St. Louis in 1986. Kroger and National had been battling for the number two and three spots since the 1970s, swapping rankings several times over throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
Niemann Foods, Inc. (NFI) is a company headquartered in Quincy, Illinois, United States, that owns and operates over 100 supermarkets, pharmacies, convenience, pet and hardware stores mostly under the County Market, County Market Express, Harvest Market, Cenex One-Stop, Haymakers, ACE Hardware, Pet Supplies Plus, and Save-A-Lot banners in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Missouri. The regional grocery store operator is growing and expanding market share in the Central Illinois, Indiana and Missouri. The employee-owned, family-run company was founded in 1917 by brothers Ferd and Steve Niemann and is currently headed by Rich Niemann, Jr.
Dahl's Foods was a grocery store chain headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa that had multiple locations in central Iowa between its founding in 1931 and its demise in 2015.
The Quad Cities MetroLINK, officially the Rock Island County Metropolitan Mass Transit District, provides mass transportation for the Illinois half of the Quad Cities metro area. Both Iowa cities that make up the region have their own systems, several MetroLINK routes connect with Davenport CitiBus, and Bettendorf Transit. It is the only transit system in the Quad Cities that operates seven days a week. The system has a fleet of 68 fixed route buses that is composed of Twelve 35-foot compressed natural gas buses, Thirty Eight 40-foot compressed natural gas buses As of 2022, they have seventeen all electric buses. Its annual ridership is 3.5 million.
Price Chopper is a group of four separate family-owned chains of grocery stores formed in 1979 in the Kansas City and Des Moines metropolitan areas that share a common brand name and unified marketing campaigns. The owners are the Ball, Cosentino, McKeever, and Queen families in Kansas City and Crestline Capital, a Bass Family of Texas entity, and DGS Foods in Des Moines. All ownership groups are members of Associated Wholesale Grocers (AWG), which allows Price Chopper to have the buying power of large chains and to share marketing costs. The five ownership groups own and operate 55 stores across Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa. Slogans for the chain include "Just Right" and "Fresher Ways to Save". In 2015 it was the largest grocery store chain in the Kansas City metropolitan area in terms of both sales and number of stores. Its biggest competitor in both Kansas City and Des Moines is Hy-Vee.
Strack & Van Til is a grocery store chain with locations in Northwest Indiana. Stores operate under the banners of Strack & Van Til and Town & Country Food Market.
Red & White was the first store brand for grocery merchandise, food products, beverages and household supplies. The brand was first launched on cans of coffee in 1908 by Smith Michael (S.M.) Flickinger in Buffalo, New York to compete with A&P and its popular private brand coffee and was named after the color on the store shelves.
Rainbow Foods was a supermarket chain in Minnesota. Founded in 1983, it operated more than 40 stores across the state at its peak and was the second-largest grocery store chain in the Twin Cities, behind Cub Foods. However, the arrival of other grocery stores in the market, such as Aldi and Hy-Vee in the 2000s and 2010s caused the grocery store chain to shrink to 27 locations by May 2014. Soon after, nine more closed and eighteen were sold by then-owner Roundy's; only six of these kept the Rainbow name.
Central Grocers Cooperative, founded in 1917 as Central Wholesale Grocers, was a retailers' cooperative based in Joliet, Illinois, near Chicago. It distributed both brand name and private label goods branded as Centrella and Silver Cup Value Buy to about 400 member-owner grocery stores in Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
Tiny but Mighty Popcorn is an American brand of heirloom popcorn, introduced in 1981, when Iowa farmer Richard Kelty founded K&K Popcorn. Iowa farmers Gene and Lynn Mealhow later purchased the company in 1999, and subsequently renamed it.