Wendy's Is Bringing Back The Vanilla Frosty After A Brief Hiatus

Last summer Wendy's made the controversial decision to take Frostys off their menu — vanilla Frostys, that is. Fans of the cool treat, a milkshake-soft serve ice cream hybrid, learned in June of 2022 that the chain would offer a new strawberry-flavored Frosty for the summer. And since, as The Street explains the machines can serve only two flavor options, so the strawberry rollout alongside the classic chocolate meant that vanilla Frostys were sacrificed. 

Vanilla Frosty fans responded furiously on social media to criticize the cancellation, with posts riddled with expletives and even threats. One Twitter user wrote, "Wendy's, you have 24 hours to bring back the vanilla frosty OR ELSE." Though vanilla Frostys were supposed to return at the end of the summer, Wendy's pivoted, deciding instead to replace strawberry with yet another seasonal flavor: a holiday-themed peppermint Frosty.

Now in the new year, there's finally some good news. The vanilla Frosty has returned to Wendy's. It's back side-by-side with the original chocolate Frosty where fans hope it will stay. 

The disappearance of the vanilla Frosty from Wendy's menus last summer sparked not only outrage, but also a bit of debate over whether vanilla Frostys were better than the original chocolate, or if it was even a true Frosty. In a Reddit thread, some users shared that they need vanilla because they don't like chocolate Frostys. When it was first created in the 1960s, Wendy's founder Dave Thomas wanted the dessert to have an old-fashioned, chocolate malt flavor. However, one Reddit user said the flavor reminds them too much of less-sweet dark chocolate. Another Redditor snapped that they "survived decades with only chocolate. Chocolate is the only real Frosty." Okay, boomer. 

Rather than upset their Frosty fans and make them argue over chocolate and vanilla, or even worse, settle for a painfully basic milkshake, there's really only one, sensible solution — and one Twitter user summed it up, "Just have all three flavors, wtf." 

Some of the chain's fans seem to want another Frosty machine so they'll always have at least three flavors, enjoying seasonal strawberry or peppermint Frostys along with good ol' chocolate and vanilla. Hopefully the Wendy's big wigs hear these pleas. Until then their fans will dream of a world that has more than two flavors of Frosty.