Pollyann Ice Cream

How lucky were we to have two cool dessert places side by side? When MRC suggested the ice cream place next door, I wasn't sure at first because we had already eaten those egg shaped waffles. After I found out that this place made their own ice cream and was practically considered an "institution" in San Francisco, my mind was already made up...

I was sold when she told me that her husband used to go here when he was a kid and his father before him as well.
Pollyann has been in business for over fifty years and according to Mr. MRC, the storefront used to be literally a hallway. You would stand through a narrow corridor, choose your ice cream flavors at the counter, they would hand it to you and you would eat it outside. It was that small. Then, in 2003, the original building was torn down and the ice cream parlor relocated in a much larger space.
The ownership changed over the years and now the Wu family own this old fashioned ice cream parlor just a few blocks away from the beach. They are known for their wide variety of "exotic" flavors including Asian flavors like jasmine tea, taro, lychee, macapuno, sesame, and even durian. They have a repertoire of about 500 flavors but there are about 50 available on any given day.

Ice cream could be eaten by the cup, cone, in sundays or as "frostys" (ice cream shakes) or you could even take ice cream to go in pint form. Ice cream is also free for dogs here!

Notice that the flavors are numbered...

I liked some of the names of their flavors like Bumpy Freeway (their variation of Rocky Road), Star Wars (mint with colored marshmallows), American Beauty (rose flavored), and OPP (not sure what that was)...

The signs speak for themselves...This is pure genius!

TC wanted to be adventurous so she chose to spin the wheel. Maybe she could get lucky and get a Free cup! So, you have to choose either the number you land on or the numbers on each side. Unfortunately for TC, her numbers landed on the alcoholic and coffee flavors! Her choices were Kahlua, Coffee, and the 4 C's (Coffee, Chocolate Chip, Cherry, and Champagne). Even though she didn't really want any of the flavors, she HAD to choose one because that's how they roll. The 4 C's sounded interesting so we asked her to get that and if she didn't like it, then we'd get her another flavor and trade. Bert and I ended up getting her one scoop of Watermelon (ice cream, not sorbet).

This was MRC's taro cup. This is one of her favorite flavors that she loves getting from here...

Again, the taro (at the top) flanked by the quite strongly flavored Green tea (MRC's daughter) and TC's "C C C C" ice cream, which was actually pretty good except to TC. She could taste the champagne and didn't like it which is when Bert ordered the watermelon for her...

And there it is, the watermelon ice cream in front of my Toki Carnavale print (Summer 2008), brought out of semi-retirement. TC enjoyed the watermelon so much more than she did the 4 C's. Now that is a flavor combination I would never have thought of. I liked the chocolate chips, the bitterness of the champagne and coffee, and the sweet chewiness of the cherries.

After our ice creams, we headed back to MRC's place to chit chat a bit before heading back across the Bay to Berkeley...

We were so exhausted from today, having left San Diego at 2:30 am. It was now 10 pm and after a botched attempt to find a nearby gas station from our GPS device (the one it listed was now defunct), we managed to get some gas in some shady part of town before heading across the bridge...

More info on Pollyann's at Yahoo info, yelp, and San Francisco city search.

Here's a few great articles:
Polly Ann Ice Cream Celebrates 50 Years " from the Western Neighborhoods Project newsletter (July 16, 2005). [Just a note that the Pollyann website on thart article does not work so don't bother clicking on it.]
Friday Sundae: Polly Ann's Star Wars Walk-Away by Tamara Palmer of SF Blogs weekly (February 27, 2009)

Here's an oldie but goodie from VH's eponymous first album, "Ice Cream Man":

"All my flavors are guaranteed to satisfy!"Tomorrow, the Marin Headlands and Sausalito!

Question for you readers out there...I think I may have asked in a previous post about ice cream, but what are your favorite ice cream places and flavors?