Last year, San Diego’s homegrown An’s Gelato was named the No. 1 ice cream in America in USA Today’s 10Best competition, following a second place finish in 2023.
For many business owners, that kind of attention would trigger a move into franchising or a rush to open multiple locations to capitalize on the exposure. Instead, the four men behind An’s hunkered down to focus instead on improving the products and service at their three local shops.
On Thursday, April 17, they’ll soft launch their fourth location at a retail space they’ve been patiently eyeing for the past four years.
The new scoop shop at 1861 Bacon St. in Ocean Beach is named An’s Electronics Repair, in keeping with the company’s unconventional marketing philosophy of naming each location after the business it replaced or honoring the neighborhood’s history. And like the other locations, An’s Electronics Repair will have an all-original, rotating menu of themed gelato flavors, including Walkman, Bluetooth and Motherboard.
An’s Electronics Repair s the company’s original store An’s Dry Cleaning in Normal Heights, An’s Hatmakers in Del Mar and An’s Athletic Field Services at Petco Park. The company was founded seven years ago by decades-long best friends Kris Warren (president and CEO) of San Diego, David Aguilera (chief gelato officer) of San Diego, Jimmy Blalock (chief financial officer) in the city of Orange, and Travis Bailey (chief marketing officer) in Camarillo.
Opening a gelato shop in Normal Heights without the word “gelato” in its name or signage was ittedly a risky maneuver in 2018, but Warren said he and his partners never doubted they’d succeed. They knew they had a good product, and they knew that their first shop — named after its previous tenant, a decades-old Martinizing and tailoring business named An’s — would spark both curiosity from local residents, as well as appreciation from the community that a local landmark was being ed.
“People are smart and you should give them credit for being smart,” Warren said. “That discovery type of marketing — where you walk by, glance and do a double take — I’ve always thought is the key to branding,” Warren said. “Everyone talks about experience these days, and it starts with what this place is called. … It’s one more interesting thing to talk about and create a fun experience. You can’t help but smile.”
As an added bonus, because each An’s shop has a different name and products, there’s no danger of them cannibalizing each other’s sales.
An’s Hatmakers in Del Mar Plaza is named for the tradition of wearing fancy headwear to the now-88-year-old Del Mar Racetrack nearby. And An’s Athletic Field Services at Petco plays with the themes of baseball and the work required to keep the ballfield in pristine shape, with flavors named Clay, Silt and Straw Hat.
Finally in Ocean Beach
Warren said he and his partners had long wanted to open a shop in O.B., where he lived and worked for several years beginning in 2009. The shop space they wanted on Bacon Street was in a great location — near Raglan Public House and OB Noodle House — but it was occupied by a cell phone repair shop. When that business closed last year, the An’s team eagerly secured the lease.
Before the O.B. location was a phone repair shop, it was a computer repair store for many years. So, with the help of Michael Soriano of Onairos Designs, they created a mock repair shop with scuffed wood ing and equipment racks filled with old Atari game systems, stereos and retro TV sets they scrounged from pawn shops and Goodwill stores.
“The idea is it’s not overly pretty, but it’s soulful,” Warren said, adding that he and his partners were long attracted to O.B. because of its residents and the community’s vibe. “There’s not a lot of pretense. They’re easygoing and very laid back. It was a natural fit for us.”
An’s specialty is making small-batch gelatos with high-quality ingredients and flavors that rotate every few weeks. Over the past seven years, Aguilera has created more than 500 flavors. Asked how he comes up with a seemingly endless variety of flavors, Aguilera credits his team.
“You need to have an environment where everybody has a voice and new workers can be fearless in sharing their ideas,” he said.
Many of the flavors are created in collaboration with businesses in the same neighborhoods as the shops. The first two collaboration flavors at An’s Electronics Repair are Riquimbili, a pistachio gelato mixed with the famous ion fruit and raspberry caramel sauce from O.B.’s Azucar Cuban bakery, and Motherboard, a peanut butter swirl inspired by OB Noodle House’s Skrewball peanut butter whiskey.
No. 1 in the U.S.
When An’s gelato was named No. 1 in America last June, Warren said it was a wonderful validation that the work he and his partners had done to create a unique and delicious product was being recognized. But the sudden surge in new visitors also created the most difficult year in the company’s history.
First-time visitors attracted by the news flooded An’s stores, and some left one- and two-star reviews on Yelp complaining about long lines (customers are encouraged to taste as as many flavors as they wish before buying), the frequency of menu changes and other issues.
“The last half-year has been our most stressful. It was the hardest we ever worked and everything was put under the microscope,” Warren said. “But that makes you better and more battle-tested. You learn to be your best in tough times.”
The USA Today honors also attracted invitations from property owners who invited An’s to open new locations in downtown San Diego and Little Italy, but Warren said the company chooses location based on community atmosphere, not potential sales.
“We could go to other neighborhoods and make more money but we never bring up money when we talk about our business,” Warren said. “That’s not our driving force. If you do a good job, money will come.”
Because of the hands-on time investment required to get a new shop up and running, Warren said he and his partners want to choose neighborhoods where they wouldn’t mind working. One possible future location is Encinitas. Another might be Portland, Ore., where Warren was born. Other potential locations are Seattle, Chicago and New York.
“We’re talking about expanding to places we love being,” he said.
The partners plan to keep up their gradual pace of opening a new store every few years because, Warren said, that helps them avoid making mistakes.
When An’s Dry Cleaning opened in June 2018, the company had 12 employees, and on their first day they sold 15 canisters of gelato (the canisters are stainless steel tubs with lids that gelato is stored in). This year, the company will grow to about 100 employees, and it’s now selling more than 100 canisters of gelato daily.
“We’re growing very slow,” he said. “Most businesses are opening four shops a year. We’re doing one every couple of years. … This way we’ve built a strong foundation. Our service has never slipped and our gelato has never slipped.”
An’s Electronics Repair
When: Soft opening Thursday, April 17. Noon to 10 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays; noon to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays
Where: 1861 Bacon St., Ocean Beach
Online: ansgelato.com, instagram.com/ansgelato
