Jarling's Custard Cup — Restaurant in Champaign

According to Google's star rating system, two stars means "Disliked it." I disliked my experience at Jarlings, and I will now explain my rating.

I grew up in the Champaign-Urbana area. I was born in Carle Hospital and went to Urbana High School. Jarling's is and has always been a staple in the area, a legendary, locally-owned custard shop. In fact I went to the University of Illinois and lived in an apartment across the street from Jarling's, on Birch Street.

In those days (prior to 2016) Jarling's was normally closed during the winter, and instead became an evergreen tree sales lot. Somehow, the company was able to stay in business and thrive. I don't remember the prices back then, but I guarantee it wasn't $4.10 for a mini size cup. Probably around half price from today. Granted, inflation is a thing.

Just like many things in the world, Jarling's is no longer the place that I remember it. Although the custard is still good, Jarling's has transformed into a commodity. It is a business investment so that a group of substandard U of I former sports coaches can appear that they are helping the community by buying out a business and raising the prices, taking advantage of people.

Today, I bought a Hawaiian Snowstorm, which has banana, pineapple and coconut, at regular size. This was my favorite snowstorm when I went here in college, and it is no longer listed on the menu. In order for the crew to make it, they charged me for three additional toppings at $0.95 each. I paid $9.09 with tax for a single, 16 oz. snowstorm.

Prices have skyrocketed. A regular peanut parfait is now $6.40. There is something wrong when the cost of a one-serving custard product at Jarling's costs more than double an entire pint of ice cream at the grocery store.

But people will still go here, because of tradition. If you live in Chambana, you will support this place, because it is a part of our community. But because it is a part of our community, it should be managed as a public service, not as a business investment for retired UIUC coaches who were paid more during their time at UIUC than any professors. Prices should be set at a competitive rate that everyone can afford.

I like the idea of Jarling's and it will always be a part of me and a positive memory of my time in Champaign-Urbana. But nothing lasts forever, and the place I enjoyed as a kid and as a college student has lost much of its luster for me. It is now a streamlined, heavily marketed operation, that serves wealthy business interests who do not care about the quality of the product, they only care about whether it sells. Jarling's no longer lives up to the standard that a small family-run business can, because it is no longer a small...

Yummy! You don't see places like this around very often anymore. Awesome custard in a large variety of flavors and serving styles. They make delicious old fashioned sodas - basically a combination milkshake and float (much more ice cream than a modern float and the liquid part is carbonated and easier to drink than a shake) in the largest array of flavors I've ever seen.

On a recent trip I stopped at three other places that advertised themselves as classic soda counters with old fashioned sodas - one of them has no idea what it was on their menu and added a scoop of ice cream to a cup with a tiny bit of chocolate syrup on the bottom with plain/unflavored soda water (thus making a very tasteless float), the other two places recommended buying a bottle of soda pop because it was much cheaper that way than it was to pay 'old fashioned' soda prices from their modern coca-cola dispenser (obviously, some corporate knowledge was lost).

Jarling's makes thick/rich old fashioned sodas ranging from 12 to 32 ounces! And they are just as good as I remember when I first had them 30 years ago. An old fashioned sodas is soda water thoroughly mixed with flavoring syrup and probably milk (which tastes like the yummy melted ice cream part at the bottom of a float but with fresh/bubbly soda pop), then the flavored soda is poured over a cup full of ice cream making something truly delicious that you consume ~50% with a straw and 50% with a spoon. Imagine something that's the best parts of a milkshake combined with a float. I always get the old fashioned chocolate soda made with vanilla custard - my dad claims it's just like the ones he had as a kid in the 1940's. My wife likes the green river soda (lime flavored) over lemon custard. They have a lot of other flavors and things to order on the menu but I'm always happy with a 32 ounce chocolate soda.

Keep local places like this in business because they are both unique...

What once used to be the best place in town to grab various high quality ice cream sweets has sadly shifted away from qualitative deserts to a faster and more rapid quantitative desert production line.

Money spent here is no longer proportional to quality of icecream based treats nor customer service.

They used to make the best blended icecream cups (called Snowstorms) but now produce watered down and poorly mixed products. Almost as if they had thrown all the ingredients in the bottom of the cup and then shoved in some icecream and hit the blender button for less than five seconds. Large chunks remain and the quality of fruit used in the production tasted old and overly sweet/ripe.

Yes, you can't cover up nasty or expired product by bathing it is syrups and sugars. Please restore your old production processed, produce vendors, repair the blending machine, or improve training on how to make something edible that doesn't give you diabetes from consuming half a cup of the product.

I had them remake the Snowstorm a second time with minimal improvements. (The manager made it the second time around, so I figured it is an issue with the ingredients they are using as well as they rushed the blending process on account of them being busy) They messed up the order again, leaving out toppings I paid for amd putting in ones I asked not to be put in, but I just didn't care at that point and wanted to leave. $13 for a Snowstorm, and all I received was Snowpoo. I took a few bites and had to just chuck it and go home disappointed 😞.

Once the best place in Urbana-Champaign area, now lower on my list than a McDonald's...