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Photo by Chris Bales, 2006 Catch a… |
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Photo by Allen Huffman, 2008 …Flave |
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Take a look at the colorful edges on the neon ice cream cone swirls. The colors tell you that this place sells vanilla soft serve ice cream with your choice of a colorful flavor swirled in—cotton candy, grape, orange, lemon, butter pecan, bubblegum, strawberry, or chocolate. |
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The official park website invites you to “take the edge off that hot California sun with a soft serve ice cream dish with a colorful flavor twist!” |
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Photo by Allen Huffman, 2009 With a yellow and white striped awning |
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Catch a Flave is on Paradise Pier, right before billboard row—or right afterwards depending on which way you’re circling the lagoon. The shop’s name and tagline are based on a 1963 Beach Boys surfing song, “Catch a Wave,” and a line from its lyrics, “Catch a wave and you’re sittin’ on top of the world.” |
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Photo by Tony “WisebearAZ” Moore, 2001 Or with a blue and white striped awning |
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Photo by Tony “WisebearAZ” Moore, 2001 Pastel paint |
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Photo by Allen Huffman, 2003 Name painted on the right side wall too |
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The building isn’t much to look at. There’s the nicely done neon sign extending out above the order windows, but, beyond that, it’s just a simple stucco box with a striped awning. The painted graphics, with pastel colors and a broad-stroke script, suggest the 1970s more than any other decade. |
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Photo by Tony “WisebearAZ” Moore, 2001 Original Catch a Flave menu in 2001 |
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Photo by Allen Huffman, 2009 Catch a Flave menu in 2009 |
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Walk up to the window and place your order. It might be a tough decision. Every flavor goes well with vanilla. With orange, you get a classic “50/50 Bar” taste. Butter pecan, with its caramel-coated nut flavor, comes highly recommended. If you can’t make up your mind, ask the cast member to pick a flavor for you. Or get plain vanilla, without a flavor swirled in. Think of it as the ninth flavor. |
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Photo by Allen Huffman, 2009 Catch a Flave after dark |
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Photo by Allen Huffman, 2009 Neon at night |
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If you think it’s too cold for an ice cream cup, cone, or float, have some hot coffee instead. But don’t count on Catch a Flave being open. This place tends to shut down when demand for ice cream drops along with the temperature. |
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Catch a Flave was part of Disney’s California Adventure when the park opened in February 2001. Here’s how the Orange County Register described Catch a Flave on February 4, 2001: “Odd twist on soft serve ice cream. Some gee-whiz gadgetry allows decadent 10 percent-butterfat ice cream to be laced with various flavor gels, ranging from obvious (chocolate and strawberry) to odd (cotton candy and bubble gum).” Presumably, Disney was using standard equipment and syrups from the Flavor Burst Company of Danville, Indiana. Although such flavored, color-edged soft serve was not unique to Catch a Flave, it was unusual. Park guests liked it. In April 2010, conventional soft serve machines replaced Catch a Flave’s “gee-whiz gadgetry.” The flavor choices became vanilla, chocolate, or vanilla and chocolate swirled together. Period. It was still called Catch a Flave for most of 2010, despite the lack of flavor choices. The prices remained the same. At least the soft serve was still tasty. |
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Photo by Chris Bales, 2010 Transformation in 2010 |
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2013 Paradise Pier Ice Cream Co. |
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In September 2010, after a short closure, Catch a Flave reopened as Paradise Pier Ice Cream Co.—a more generic name that better reflected its more generic menu. The neon sign from Catch a Flave survived, but as a plain vanilla cone. The former Catch a Flave—and its successor Paradise Pier Ice Cream Co.—became Adorable Snowman Frosted Treats in 2018.
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© 2023 Werner Weiss — Disclaimers, Copyright, and Trademarks Updated July 21, 2023 |
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