Merla Mae: TBay’s OG Ice Cream Spot & Only Drive-In is Still Your Favourite Summer Tradition
Amanda Bay
June 24, 2026
You know summer’s actually here in Thunder Bay the second you spot THE line. It’s not the May long weekend, not the first patio day, but the Merla Mae line…that’s the real signal.
For the uninitiated, Merla Mae has been serving up soft serve and burgers at the same spot on Memorial Avenue since 1951, back when Wendell and Jean Cathers opened it as the city’s first, and still only, licensed drive-in. Seventy-plus years later, the building and the menu haven’t changed much, and that’s exactly the point. Your grandparents probably pulled up here in their car decades ago blasting the Beatles, your parents brought you as a kid, and now you’re bringing yours. It’s a TBay summer tradition that truly never gets old.
What keeps people coming back isn’t nostalgia alone, though. It’s that the ice cream is REALLY good. Made in-house, the vanilla, chocolate, twin swirl, and chocolate-dipped cones built Merla Mae’s reputation decades ago. There’s also Persian-flavoured ice cream, which takes Thunder Bay’s other favourite baked good and somehow turns it into a cone. But if dairy’s not your thing, the imported Southern Italian sorbet is shockingly a good stand-in, and the menu keeps going from there.
Floats in Coke, 7Up, root beer, or orange; a build-your-own banana split, where you pick three ice cream flavours and toppings; and mini ice cream cakes called Buddies, made for sharing, in flavours like Skor and blueberry cheesecake, assuming you’re capable of sharing. There’s even a doggie sundae, so your dog doesn’t have to sit in the car feeling left out.
Then there are the burgers, which somehow have just as devoted a following as the ice cream. Real beef patties, buns from Bennett’s Bakery & Deli, and Merla Mae sauce, which locals will defend with the kind of passion usually reserved for hockey opinions (and no matter how many times you ask what’s in it…it’s staying top secret). Feeling ambitious? Get the Ultimate Burger.
Now, the real magic of it all is the ritual. Walk up to the window, order way more food than you planned to, then grab a picnic table or eat in your car with the windows down, while retro tunes play on repeat. Can’t decide what to order? Go for the chocolate-dipped Twin (it’s a classic for a reason).
Merla Mae also turns the whole thing up a notch with live music nights. Radar and the Rockets play classic rock sets right there in the parking lot on Sunday, July 19th and Sunday, August 16th, both 7 PM to 11 PM.
Now here’s the catch, and the one thing that makes all of this slightly urgent. Merla Mae’s season is short. It opens and then, before anyone’s really ready for it, it’s gone again until next May, so don’t wait. I scream, you scream, we all scream for Merla Mae ice cream!
