We’re social creatures. If we don’t gather, we get weird. As church attendance lags, restaurants and bars are the stadium-rock arenas for this need.
But as inflation rose in 2025, the indie stage of ice cream shops became a whole hell of a lot more attractive. Even if you’re using imported, free-range hippo milk and single-origin rainbow sprinkles, the scoop’s still gonna cost less than a negroni. This is partially why ice cream shops (and coffee and donuts) had a hell of a year (that, plus California sober hit your friends like a rapture).
In San Diego, a killer trio is playing out the ice cream wars (the cutest wars). Stella Jean’s rode one little University Heights shop to glory, using local-ish Scott Brothers Dairy cream (higher butterfat, higher flavor) for what is arguably the city’s most delicious frozen intoxicant: ube and pandesal toffee ice cream (the epic Filipino treat gone cold). The shop’s seasonal releases have fan fic.
Meghan Koll learned the art of ingredient alchemy at the city’s top bar programs (Noble Experiment, Jeune et Jolie), then got an architecture and design degree, so the result is her charming-as-heck Little Fox Cups & Cones (in Oceanside and Cardiff and, soon, many other places) and its farmers- market scoops (including an avocado toast riff using Jason Mraz’s avos, toasted bread cream, and lime zest).
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And in OB, An’s just opened its next gelato-joint-as-something-else iteration, this one masquerading as an electronics repair shop (An’s has also impersonated hat shops and laundromats). The Kimono flavor ( jasmine tea and blueberry, a collaboration with La Jolla’s Paru Tea) is still the win.
