Filbert Street Ice Cream Festival
Reading Terminal
Philadelphia
Aug. 15, 2026
Since moving within the city to Chinatown a few months ago, I’ve made a point to steer clear of one of my oldest and loudest next door neighbors: Reading Terminal Market.
This weekend I made an attempt to reconcile my relationship with the tourist trap by turning out to one of its allegedly most popular annual events. I set out with my reluctant roommate in tow to get the scoop on The Filbert Street Ice Cream Festival.
I avoid walking through the maze of Reading Terminal because it is chronically beyond crowded. Not just with more than 75 small businesses and food vendors (down from over 250 back in 1913, after the market formally opened in 1883), but by the 100,000-plus people who pass through the market on average each week. Even though the market is modeled after Philly’s grid system, navigating the scene feels like trying to find my way around some kind of hyperlocal circus straight out of my nightmares, filled to the brim with all kinds of freaky Amish gelatins and mayonnaise-heavy concoctions.
I was compelled by Bassett's Wonkish-colored cones, like salted blue corn... but not enough to buy one.
So I was pleased to find just around eight local ice cream vendors — including Bassetts, Milk Jawn, Tubby Robot, and Hangry Bear Creamery, to name both the most famous and (IMHO) successfully named businesses — set up in the market’s courtyard on Saturday for the occasion. The majority of attendees were clearly-from-Philly patrons (an assumption I made based on the number of passerby packing blunts behind their ears or wearing tank tops with slogans like “Support Your Local Dive Bar” written across the rack). Maps noted which stalls inside the market were offering ice cream specials in honor of the holiday.
My mood turned positive when I found out that an ice cream eating competition would be taking place throughout the afternoon. Philly’s personality has been proven to pair well with the down-and-dirty practice of competitive eating (ever heard of Wing Bowl?).
My roommate, meanwhile, was psyched about a different discovery: “There are Choco Tacos here!” she cried upon surveying the number of U-shape ice cream cones abounding. Grievously, she recalled a bad day in July of 2022: “I was walking home from the gym when I read that the Choco Taco had been discontinued,” she said, referencing the Klondike product that once stuffed cold cream into a hard (read: soggy) taco shell. “I went to the gas station and bought three of them to process the news.”
Knowing Choco Tacos would be on our disgustingly dairy-rich lunch menu, we made our way around the hall, deciding which other overpriced ice creams to taste at the expense of our wallets and stomachs. Indoors, where the regular vendors were adding ice cream specials for day, we settled on an ube-mango soft-serve swirl from Tambayan, a Filipino restaurant. We also sampled a “Schwarbomb Sundae” from Head Nut, a candy shop that put its own spin on the dish named after home run hitter Kyle Schwarbomb of the Phillies. It sells for roughly twice the price at Citizens Bank Park. ($20 is an unacceptable price for an ice cream, guys.)
Though the ube-mango tasted like a gritty mixture of Playdoh and water, we salivated separately over samples of Tambayan's longaniza sausage (described as chorizo’s “lesser known cousin” online). I swore to return another time for a breakfast platter when not on assignment to gorge on ice cream.
The "Schwarbomb" and a mango-ube swirl.
The Schwarbomb Sundae, on the other hand, which I decided to buy out of local spirit over culinary curiosity, was a surprising show stealer. The concoction included vanilla ice cream, a peanut butter and jelly cookie devised by Reading Terminal’s Flying Monkey bakery, strawberry sauce and fruity pebbles served in a red Phillies cap. It was assembled by a woman with dangling red Phillies earrings. She told us the pure Phillies’ version features — rather than a freshly baked cookie by local craftsmen — an Uncrustable produced by Smucker’s, a snack that is apparently popular not just among neglected or picky-eating children, but major athletes, too.
Our hands smothered in sticky strawberry goo, we returned to the courtyard with stomachs as churned up as Amish butter. (I must mention that I was also snacking on every free savory sample available from vendors along the way, including cubes of “steakhouse-infused cheese,” slivers of “sweet fire pickles,” and cups of contextless “fig balsamic glaze,” because I insist on trying everything I know I don’t want to try a million times more than once). There we saw some REAL athletes chow down on some soft serve. And to buy my friend, who is approaching 30 years of age, a Choco Taco.
“ARE YOU READY FOR SOME BRAIN FREEZEEEE?” a representative for Bassett’s ice cream (established in 1861, by the way) questioned while selecting audience members to eat vanilla and chocolate scoops out of a bowl with no hands in front of the general public and a lot of smartphones. The prize — for whoever finished first — was a massive championship belt that I assume would only fit someone who dedicated their daily life to competitive ice cream eating.
“Oh — this is rigged!” my roommate declared, noting the varying amounts of ice cream at different stages of meltedness on stage. “Also, why wear glasses to a no-hands eating competition?” she critiqued one dude, who, before the timer went off, shed his frames Superman-style, foreshadowing the fact that he would not only win this round, but come in second place for the full, multi-tiered contest.
Watch glasses man go crazy on the ice cream above.
The actual winner was dubbed after a trivia-portion of the tournament that asked “What year was the ice cream float invented?” The best guess was 1986; the answer of 1874, in Philadelphia, of course.
We saved the best for last: While contestants shoved their noses into boring old vanilla scoops, my roommate unwrapped a pristine design architected by the legendary Milk Jawn. The past, future, and all notions of cultural clarity blurred into nothingness as we swapped bites of the artisan taco. Vanilla and fudge ice cream packed (stuffed, no oxygen to be found, think the polar opposite of a Lay’s potato chips bag) into a waffle shell, sealed on the outside with chocolate and decorated densely with peanuts, was like a love letter from Philly to all those let down by the failures of Big ice cream.
Klondike could never deliver such a dream. And Reading Terminal is no longer my nightmare, but my trusted neighbor.
