Philly’s best milkshakes go big with bold ideas and perfect the time-honored classics

Perfect for a summertime date, outings with friends or a sweet treat to get delivered to home for a binge-watching session, milkshakes can be found anywhere in Philly to satisfy those ice cream cravings.

In Philly, there’s no clear winner when it comes to shakes, as they all put their twist on things. Go for traditional milkshakes served in metal malt cups at Nifty Fifty’s for that throwback appeal, or venture up to C&C Creamery for a hard or soft serve ice cream shake, and there’s also the brand new Kook Burger & Bar for monstrously grand and delicious milkshakes to check out.

Whatever may float your shake, The Inquirer’s got you covered with some of the best milkshakes in Philadelphia.

Known for their extravagant Hong Kong-style egg waffle cones, coconut ice cream bowls and Asian-inspired flavors, Arctic Scoop also whips up some of the city’s smoothest and creamiest milkshakes. Choose between eight signature flavors like banana caramel, banana chocolate and strawberry cheesecake and classics like vanilla, chocolate and twist. With Arctic’s homemade ice cream, high-quality milk and various toppings, drizzles and sweeteners to kick it up a notch — this $8 milkshake is a smooth and luxurious beverage.

📍 1812 E. Passyunk Ave. 📞 917-607-0616 🌐 arcticscoopphilly.com

What more can be said about America’s oldest ice cream parlor? Bassetts is included in The Inquirer’s best ice cream and best ice cream pints lists, and you can find their ice cream in hundreds of local restaurants, cafes and ice cream parlors across the region. At Bassetts’ scoop shop in Reading Terminal Market, they take their famous ice cream and make milkshake masterpieces before your eyes with chocolate syrup and caramel decorating the inside of the cup. Choose between more than 30 ice cream flavors to mix and match into your favorite milkshakes like strawberry banana or chocolate peanut butter for $10 — and for 50 cents more, make it a malted shake. But where the milkshake menu sings is in their $12 specialty shakes like “S’moreos,” a cookies and cream and chocolate ice cream milkshake topped with graham crackers and marshmallows.

📍 45 N. 12th St. 📞 215-925-4315 🌐 bassettsicecream.com

Serving the Manayunk-Roxborough section of Philadelphia for nearly 70 years, C&C Creamery is known to most in the area as the “neighborhood custard stand.” With homemade ice cream available in hand-packed, dense and creamy ice cream, or soft-serve, light and fluffy ice cream, you can pick from more than 30 flavors to make a milkshake. Don’t forget to add toppings like brownie bites, cheesecake bites, candies and jimmies. According to C&C Creamery, their crowd favorites are cookies and cream, salty caramel pretzel and oreo cheesecake milkshakes. With some of the best and most affordable milkshakes in the city for $5.25 to $8.75, you can’t go wrong with the friendly neighborhood custard stand.

📍 5461 Ridge Ave. 📞 215-487-1920 🌐 candccreamery.com

This Powelton Village neighborhood scoop shop near Lancaster Avenue is a go-to for all the traditional ice cream and carnival treats. Not only are they skilled in homemade ice cream making and crafting delicious ice cream sandwiches using Reading Terminal Market’s Famous 4th Street cookies, but they also make your favorite carnival treats like funnel cakes, fried Oreos and corn dogs. All the tasty treats aside, their milkshakes bring a unique offering to Philly’s milkshake scene with more than 20 flavors of classic and specialty shakes, but they also make their own “granita milkshakes,” a combination of Philly water ice and a vanilla milkshake. Pick up any of their mouth-watering shakes for $6.50 to $7.50 in-store or online for delivery.

📍 3632 Powelton Ave. 📞 267-353-8059 🌐 cocoscookiesandcreamery.com

Craftsman Row Saloon easily has some of the city’s most decadent and indulgent milkshakes, hands down. The saloon also knows how to throw a party featuring seasonal shakes with its “Santa’s Cookies” shakes during its annual Christmas pop-up or spooky shakes during Halloween. All of its $16 to $17 gigantic milkshakes are topped with baked goods like cookies, cake slices and pretzels, and they come in a large mason jar — but the kicker is that for $6 extra, you can add your favorite liquor for a boozy shake. The saloon’s milkshake offering hones in on classic milkshake flavors and then cranks it up to an 11 with shakes like “The Brotherly Love,” vanilla ice cream, Hershey’s chocolate, peanut chews, tasty cake cupcake & kandy kake, peanut butter and topped off with an Amish pretzel stick.

📍 112 S. 8th St. 📞 215-923-0123 🌐 craftsmanrowsaloon.com

Philly’s very own soda fountain, calling back to the turn of the 20th Century, Franklin Fountain, produces a Philadelphia-style ice cream that is light and refreshing, with creamy flavors melting in your mouth with each bite. Franklin Fountain has two storefront locations on Market Street in Old City that are filled with all kinds of ice cream parlor and soda fountain treats, but its milkshakes are nationally renowned. It’s hard to pick a favorite milkshake when there are more than 40 flavors to choose from, and you can choose the consistency of your shake, toppings to go on it, and you can make your shakes malted. You’ll get a top-tier Franklin Fountain milkshake at $14 with two ice cream flavors.

📍 116 Market St. 📞 215-627-1899 🌐 franklinfountain.com

Brewerytown’s neighborhood ice cream parlor, Harper’s, is also one of the city’s finest procurers of local ingredients with fresh dairy from Pennsylvania farms, no artificial sweeteners, and all ice cream fixings made in-house. As a small-batch ice cream maker, its milkshakes use a handmade 16% butterfat ice cream that is dense and full of flavor, matched with drizzles, syrups, chocolate pretzels and other assorted toppings. Enjoy favorites like a vanilla and chocolate twist shake or create your own with the 16 rotating ice flavors at Harper’s, all for just $8.50 a milkshake.

📍 2827 W. Girard Ave. 📞 215-789-6597 🌐 harpersicecream.com

Kook’s Shoobie Shakes (named after “shoobies,” the term used for out-of-towners at the beach) are gargantuan milkshakes stuffed with slices of cake, cotton candy, cookies, brownies, candy bars and so much more. Their milkshakes are indulgent, and you’ll most likely need a nap after finishing one, but it’s worth it. Try their “Sunburnt Berry,” a strawberry cheesecake milkshake rimmed with cream cheese and graham cracker crumbs with a topping of whipped cream and a slice of strawberry cheesecake — it’s like multiple desserts in one. There’s also the “Kotton Candy Krazy,” a cotton candy milkshake with Nerds candy and vanilla icing rimmed around the glass topped off with whipped cream, more cotton candy and a lollipop. All milkshakes start at $19, but for $30, take home your own Kook Burger glass. Order one of their milkshakes during your dinner or order online for pick-up.

📍 2102 Market St. 📞 215-930-1315 🌐 kookburgerbar.com

You can’t talk Philly milkshakes without bringing up Nifty Fifty’s. This throwback diner, burger joint and milkshake haven, with locations across the region, specializes in time-honored classics. With homemade soft-serve ice cream, their milkshakes are served in the same metal malt cups used to whip them up, just like in the ‘50s. Now what will really blow your mind is that they have more than 100 different milkshake offerings, not including the dessert milkshakes that come with waffles, Oreos, cinnamon buns and fudge brownies atop the shake. If that’s not enough proof of why Nifty’s is one of the top milkshake producers, according to the owners, they went through seven recipes just to create the vanilla ice cream recipe alone. What’s more fun is that employees at Nifty Fifty’s can create their own milkshake recipes to be featured on the menu, and to top it off, there’s no milkshake on the menu that costs more than $7.50, so what are you waiting for?

📍 2700 S. 10th St. / 2431 Aramingo Ave. 📞 267–719–1950 / 267-771-1950 🌐 niftyfiftys.com

Scoop DeVille takes every part of their ice cream desserts to the next level. From softball-sized ice cream sandwiches to creating any flavor of soft-serve ice cream you can think of, the milkshakes are a sight to behold too. According to Spencer Philips, owner of Scoop DeVille, milkshakes are one of their more popular items, and just like all their desserts, you can create any flavor of shake you want. The difference between Scoop DeVille’s shakes and others is that it’s basically all ice cream and no milk, which according to Philips, gives more flavor and a less “watered-down” milkshake. Enjoy these thick and flavorful shakes for $7 to $10.

📍 1109 Walnut St. / 538 South St. 📞 215-988-9992 / 267-639-4565 🌐 scoopdevilleicecream.com

Somerset Splits in the Port Richmond neighborhood of Philadelphia is known to locals as the “Sundae Palace,” with some of the most extravagant and jam-packed ice cream desserts you’ll find in the city. Using Philly’s Bassetts ice cream, the Sundae Palace fills its desserts with candies, cookies, gummies, cereal, fudge, donuts and so much more — even hot Cheetos. When it comes to milkshakes, they bring that same energy. The most popular milkshakes on the menu are the Fruity Pebbles milkshake topped with the famous cereal and the tropical Fruity Hawaiian Punch shake with red Sour Patch Kids. But for all those McDonald’s Shamrock Shake lovers out there, this one’s for you: “Don’t Kiss The Blarney Stone,” a green tea and mint chocolate chip milkshake with a dash of honey that is available regularly throughout the year — not just in February and March. For $7 to $8.50, try any of their signature shakes or make your own with their rotating ice cream flavor menu.

📍 2600 E. Somerset St. 🌐 somersetsplits.square.site

With more than 800 party, role-playing, strategy and solo board games, Thirsty Dice is a hub of in-person gaming with friends, and it’s also the first of its kind in Philly. But the accolades don’t stop there. They also have some of the best milkshakes in the city. Thirsty Dice partners with Philly’s OG ice cream parlor, Bassetts, to produce some indulgent and refreshing shakes, from the “Bakery Shake,” a chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream with brownie pieces and hot fudge milkshake, to the “Peanut Butter Lover’s,” a peanut butter swirl ice cream with Reese’s cups and butterscotch milkshake. The board game cafe also has boozy milkshakes on offer. Starting at $11.50, these milkshakes pair nicely with an exhilarating game of Dungeons & Dragons, which Thirsty Dice holds D&D events every Tuesday night.

📍 1642 Fairmount Ave. 📞 215-765-2679 🌐 thirstydice.com