This place is awesome. For less than five bucks, diners can get a bowl of shaved ice complete with a choice of four fruits or toppings, condensed milk, and two scoops of ice cream. It’s the Chinatown equivalent of the banana split. They also have a great selection of bubble tea flavors all made from fresh fruit, no syrups. Patrons can see the fruit being cut several times a day to ensure freshness. GOGO Ice is a great way to beat the heat.

Tapioca House specializes in bubble tea and coffee. They also serve traditional Taiwanese meals and snacks, along with a huge assortment of fruit drinks and smoothies. After only ten drinks, the eleventh one is free and guests can also enjoy free wireless internet.

The juice box allows diners to choose from 10 different fruit juices including durian(?!?). Each fruit juice can be prepared several different ways including as a smoothie or blended with other fruits and ingredients, like Chinese yogurt, or Calpis (a Japanese un-carbonated soft drink). They also have coffee and ice cream, several shaved ice variants and sugar-coated fruit on a stick.

Shaved ice with fruit, lychee jelly, mango pudding, and almost anything else one can imagine (along with a few things no one ever would) make Star Snow Ice a great place to cool down after a hard day. Along with the ice treats, they also have bubble tea, coffee, and snacks available.

People in the burbs need frozen treats too, and Bruzzel’s Shaved Ice has been providing them with just that for the last five years. They are open year round and boast a whopping one hundred flavors. That does not include the wide variety of add-ons diners can choose from including: salt spray, dill pickle juice and chamoy. They have sugar-free flavors. Also, unlike almost all the other places on this list, Bruzzel’s accepts credit cards. Plus, with a customer loyalty card, everyone who manages to eat forty-five snow cones goes home with a free t-shirt.

Tampico has been around forever and what they serve is old school, eat at the public pool, take your shirt off first, stain your tongue blue, raspas (snow cones). There is no fruit involved. This is straight syrup; sweet, cold, delicious syrup over crunchy crushed ice. They are cheap, cold, and sweet. Also they serve frito pies yeeaaaaaw!

This place has been open for about five years and is definitely one of Northside’s best kept secrets so get ready to live. All those guys with the bikes that go around selling the paletas (popsicles) out of the coolers buy them from El Pibe. There are twelve coolers full of different frozen treats from bomb sticks to drum sticks, and they’re all a dollar. The actual paletas are against the wall in the back: nuez (walnut), mango, fresa (strawberry), chile, tamarindo, horchata, rompope (Mexican egg nog). All of these are three for $1.25 or twelve for $4!! Now calm down, get in the car, and go there.

Just sayin, they have Slurpees in there. Or is it Icees? Seriously, they’re like two bucks! White Cherry, Blue Raspberry, COCA-COLA! Come on who doesn’t like a Slurpee!? They come with the shovel straw and everything!