RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — Irvine Robbins, who as co- founder of Baskin-Robbins brought Rocky Road, Pralines ‘n Cream and other exotic ice-cream concoctions to every corner of America, died Monday, said his daughter Marsha Veit. He was 90.
While the company advertised that it offered 31 flavors, it has created more than 1,000, its website says.
Generations of kids trooped to Baskin-Robbins stores to buy ice-cream flavors such as Jamoca, Daiquiri Ice, Pink Bubblegum, Nuts to You and Here Comes the Fudge.
“Frankly, I never met a flavor I didn’t like,” Robbins told The New York Times in 1973.
When the Beatles were to arrive in the United States in 1964, a reporter called to ask whether the store would mark the event with a new flavor. Robbins didn’t have one planned but replied, “Uh, Beatle Nut, of course.” The flavor was created, manufactured and delivered in five days, according to the website.
Robbins opened his first ice- cream store in Glendale, Calif., in December 1945, following his discharge from the Army. He used $6,000 from an insurance policy his father had given him for his bar mitzvah.
Robbins offered 21 flavors at the store. His cousin Sybil Hartfield bought $39 of the first day’s sales of $53, according to a biography of him by Veit.
His brother-in-law, the late Burton Baskin, opened his own ice-cream store in neighboring Pasadena a year later. By the end of the 1940s, they had joined forces.
As corporate policy, employees were allowed to eat all the ice cream they wanted because, Robbins said, “I don’t want my employees stealing.”
Today, Baskin-Robbins is part of Dunkin’ Brands Inc. and has more than 5,800 franchises worldwide.
Did you try …
Baskin-Robbins ice cream made hundreds of new flavors a year at a factory in Burbank, Calif., but only eight or nine would make it to market. Some saluted special occasions:
•Baseball Nut, for the Dodgers’ arrival in Los Angeles in 1958, with raspberries for the umpires
•Lunar Cheesecake, launched the day after man landed on the moon in 1969
•Beatle Nut, during Beatlemania in 1964
Maybe not
Among those that never left the laboratory:
•Ketchup
•Lox and Bagels
•Grape Britain
Los Angeles Times
