Mitchell's Ice Cream
A fruit broker talked the Mitchell family into a mango ice cream in the 1960s. It outsold vanilla straight away and it still does. Jack and Larry Mitchell opened the shop in 1953, in a storefront their grandmother built on San Jose Avenue.
Why go
Margaret Mitchell was widowed in the 1890s. She leased out the family dairy land and put up the apartment building the shop still occupies. The city widened San Jose Avenue in 1947 and she fought them off. They turned the building ninety degrees instead of demolishing it. Her grandsons opened the scoop shop in the vacant storefront underneath. Linda and Brian Mitchell ran it about thirty years. They have handed the day to day to Marlon and Wanda Payumo, who have 67 years between them behind that counter.
Buko and macapuno are two Philippine coconuts, and both came in behind the mango. Coconut pineapple did too. All three use fruit the shop imports from the Philippines. You will find lucuma, jackfruit, avocado and lychee at some point in the year. Horchata and Mexican chocolate hold their place. For Filipino American History Month in October 2023 the shop built a mangonada with Señor Sisig, on fresh Philippine mangoes under chamoy. There is a halo-halo, sold as a sundae. The base runs at 16 percent butterfat, which is why a hard scoop here does not taste thin. Nineteen flavors at opening have become forty, all still made in the basement. San Francisco put the business on its legacy business registry in September 2023.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the mango, first, because it is the reason the rest of the list exists.
- Order: ube and avocado together, which is how Luke Tsai took his.
- Order: the halo-halo sundae if you want the full argument on one spoon.
- Avoid: turning up without patience.
What locals & experts say
- Luke Tsai, KQED's food editor, October 2024: what sets it apart is
its near-encyclopedic selection of tropical fruit flavors you'd be hard-pressed to find anywhere else, at least in the same quality and sheer variety.
1 - Linda Mitchell, on the staff who run it now, to The San Francisco Standard in September 2023:
They're just as important as the ice cream.
2 - Elena Kadvany, San Francisco Chronicle, August 2025: Mitchell's is the ice cream on many San Francisco restaurants' dessert menus, so you meet it whether you come here or not.3
Good to know
- Getting in: no bookings. Take a numbered ticket from the machine inside.
- Take home: pints, quarts and half gallons. Party orders want about a week's notice by phone.
- Where: 688 San Jose Avenue, at 29th.
Verdict
should-visit — Two scoops beats a sundae unless you are splitting it. Go when you can spare twenty minutes for the ticket queue.