Baskin Robbins Closes in Fairfax City After 50 Years: Report

PHOTOS: Baskin Robbins ice cream cone, photo courtesy of company; Baskin Robbins in Fairfax City, Google photo

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FAIRFAX CITY, VA -- A City institution, the Baskin Robbins at Fairfax Shopping Center, has scooped its last cone, according to a story in The Washington Post.

A traffic improvement project will cut through part of the shopping center, where the ice cream shop has been operating since 1962. The shop was located at 10400 Lee Highway.

The owner, Syed Ahmed, was on hand at a party last week for longtime patrons and former employees before closing the location for good Sunday, the Post reported. Ahmed is looking to relocate his business and will be helped with $75,000 from the Virginia Department of Transportation.

Read the entire Washington Post story here.

5 things you didn't know about Baskin Robbins:

• "Beatle Nut" was a flavor thought up on the spot, as a promotion for when the Beatles first visited the United States
• Known for 31 flavors, Baskin and Robbins has actually featured more than 1,000 flavors over the years.
• The founders of the company were in-laws.
• The two, Burt Baskin and Irv Robbins, flipped a coin to see whose name would go first.

Baskin-Robbins is the world's largest chain of ice cream specialty shops and is based in Canton, Mass. It was founded in 1945 by Baskin and Robbins in Glendale, Calif.