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When is National Soft Serve Day?

National Soft Serve Day celebrates ice cream served soft, straight from the freezer, and falls on August 19 every year.

Next

Thursday, August 19, 2027

in 295 days

The one after

Saturday, August 19, 2028

Every year

August 19 every year

Informal observance

National Soft Serve Day, also called National Soft Ice Cream Day, celebrates soft serve: ice cream served straight from the freezer, still soft, without the hardening step. It falls on August 19 every year.

It is an informal observance listed by day-calendar sites and trade groups, not a proclaimed holiday. No law or proclamation names it, so it is a day you mark simply because you want a cone.

Informal observance. An informal observance, listed by day-calendar sites and trade groups. It is not a proclaimed holiday.

Simple ways to mark the day

  • Read the soft serve entry in the ice cream glossary with your class or team, then talk over cones about how it differs from frozen custard.
  • Use Cost per Scoop to see what each serving costs from a store container before you buy for an office or classroom treat.
  • Check the ice cream scoop size chart to pick a disher and work out how many scoops each container will give your group.
  • At home, serve ice cream right after churning, while it is still soft, so everyone gets a taste of soft-serve texture.

  • Glossary

    Ice cream glossary

    Plain definitions of the words you meet on labels, in recipes and on this site, each with its source named.

  • Cost per Scoop

    Cost per scoop of ice cream

    Find what one scoop of ice cream costs from a store tub or a gallon of shop mix, and how much is air.

  • Scoop size chart

    Ice cream scoop sizes and the disher number chart

    The number stamped on an ice cream scoop tells you how many level scoopfuls fill one quart, so a #8 holds 4 fluid ounces (1/2 cup) and a #16 holds 2.

Read about this frozen dessert

Where the day comes from

National Soft Serve Day is an informal observance listed by day-calendar sites and trade groups, not a proclaimed holiday. No law or proclamation names it. It falls on August 19 every year, and it goes by two names. National Day Calendar lists August 19 as National Soft Ice Cream Day and says it could not find who created it. Carvel, a soft-serve maker, calls the same date National Soft Serve Day.

Neither page says who started the day, so its origin is unknown. What the two names share is the date and the treat. If you are writing about National Soft Serve Day for a newsletter or a social post, the plain version is accurate: it falls on August 19, every year, and nobody knows who started it.

The treat itself is simpler than it looks. The University of Guelph’s Ice Cream Technology e-Book describes soft serve as essentially the same semi-frozen ice cream that leaves the freezer, put straight into cones instead of being packaged and hardened. By that account, a cone of soft serve is ice cream served at an earlier stage, before it ever goes into a carton.

Questions people ask

When is National Soft Serve Day?

National Soft Serve Day falls on August 19 every year, so the weekday changes from year to year. National Day Calendar lists the same date as National Soft Ice Cream Day, so both names point to one day.

Is National Soft Serve Day an official holiday?

No. It is an informal observance listed by day-calendar sites and trade groups. No law or proclamation names it, so it is not a public holiday and marking it is entirely up to you.

Who started National Soft Serve Day?

Nobody knows. National Day Calendar says it could not find who created the day, and Carvel, a soft-serve maker, calls August 19 National Soft Serve Day without saying who started it either.

What makes soft serve different from regular ice cream?

According to the University of Guelph's Ice Cream Technology e-Book, soft serve is essentially the same semi-frozen ice cream that leaves the freezer, put straight into cones instead of being packaged and hardened.

Sources

  1. National Soft Ice Cream Day (August 19) National Day Calendar
  2. National Soft Serve Day (newsroom) Carvel
  3. Ice Cream Technology e-Book: Freezing/Whipping of Ice Cream H. Douglas Goff, University of Guelph

Every data source the site uses is on the Sources page.

More ice cream days

The full calendar, with a month view of July