Founded in 1870 by Louis C. Graeter, the company has since expanded to 56 retail locations selling ice cream, candy and baked goods in the Midwestern United States.

[2] Graeter, the son of German immigrants, opened the first ice cream shop for the business in 1870 in Cincinnati's Pendleton neighborhood which quickly gained a following.

Growing with the advent of the premium ice cream market in the decades after, the company has been managed by four successive generations of the Graeter family, expanding its retail shops to Columbus, Louisville, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and other cities.

Deals with major supermarket chains including Kroger have brought Graeter's Ice Cream to more than 6,200 grocery stores nationwide as well.

[3][4][Note 1] At first, he sold the ice cream at the Court Street Market at the base of Sycamore Hill in Cincinnati's Pendleton neighborhood.

[9] Louis Graeter married a third time, to Regina Berger, the daughter of a prominent Cincinnati businessman with a strong reputation in the community.

[Note 2] Together, Graeter and his new wife set up a home at 967 East McMillan St. in the Walnut Hills neighborhood, producing and selling ice cream on the bottom floor of the property.

[10][11] Louis Charles died in 1919 at 67 after being hit by a streetcar, and his wife took over the business[12][11] while continuing to raise their two sons, Wilmer and Paul.

[13][11] While business remained steady through the Great Depression,[13] the shop faced challenges during World War II thanks to the nationwide rationing of sugar, as well as lack of available manpower.

[14] But the shop grew with the population boom brought about following the war, and it opened new locations in the Oakley, East End and Bond Hill neighborhoods, following suburban sprawl in those areas.

[8] Following World War II, and with new manufacturing processes and the proliferation of the refrigerator, Graeter's faced challenges from competitors who could mass-produce ice cream.

[15] Among its competitors was Aglamesis Bro's, another family-owned business opened in Cincinnati, as well as United Dairy Farmers, which grew quickly.

[16] Graeter's and Algamesis Bros., in particular, are routinely considered to be rivals in Cincinnati, though the companies are different in size and the style of ice cream they make is different.

[14] The invention of soft serve also allowed large national chains like Dairy Queen, Carvel and Tastee-Freez to grow as well.

[17] During this time, the shop began operating a bakery with an increasing variety of goods as an added service, and stopped selling toys and other novelties.

[21] In this time, it faced particular competition from upscale brands with more flavors of ice cream sold in pints that could be taken home, including Baskin-Robbins, Häagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry's.

[25][26] However, undertaking succession planning with the help of University of Cincinnati experts, the business wasn't fully transferred to the fourth generation for over a decade.

[4] Once the fourth generation took the business full-time at the end of 2003, it subsequently undertook a rebranding process rolling out a new logo designed by Libby, Perszyk, Kathman Inc., stronger marketing and a more cohesive strategic direction.

[32] In 2009 the company announced plans to build a new 28,000 square feet (2,600 m2) plant in the Bond Hill neighborhood of Cincinnati to allow it to continue to grow production.

[33] This, as Graeter's announced it, planned to distribute its ice creams outside of the Cincinnati market and to supermarkets in other cities, including Denver, Houston, and Atlanta.

[6] This partnership was successful enough that the next year, the two companies collaborated on a pumpkin ale that hearkened to Graeter's seasonal fall ice cream flavor.

[37] In 2018, Graeter's consolidated its company headquarters into a 7,000-square-foot office at 2245 Gilbert Ave. in Walnut Hills, bringing all retail, marketing and creative, production, accounting and finance employees under one roof.

[43] Though it is gravitated to more all-natural ingredients in recent years, including substituting beet juice instead of food dye and sourcing dairy products from hormone-free cows.

[35] It has continued to out-sell Ben & Jerry's and Häagen-Dazs ice cream at Kroger locations in the Cincinnati market, making the city the only place in the country where those brands are not top sellers in the supermarket.

[17][44][35] According to the company's recollections, this technique was created when a young Wilmer Graeter stole chocolate and poured it into a pot of ice cream.

[49] Under Louis Graeter, a number of other items were initially sold at the store, including ceramics, candy cases, toys and other novelties, primarily to turn a profit in the winter when ice cream sales were slow.

[12] When Regina Graeter died in 1955, the company's next generation stopped selling novelty items in a bid to focus more on ice cream, baked goods and chocolates.

[36][32] In 2005, food writer David Rosengarten of Gourmet magazine named Graeter's the best ice cream in his newsletter, after getting numerous letters of support for the business.

Saveur praised Graeter's twice amid a roundup of ice cream shops around the country, while Chicago magazine termed it an essential experience when visiting Cincinnati.

[58] The chain also counts Sarah Jessica Parker, George Clooney, Nick Lachey, Kevin Costner, Ashley Judd and Justin Timberlake as customers.