For one day, the Tenderloin gets an ice cream shop to call its own

By Astrid KanePhotos and videos by Morgan EllisPublished Sep. 19, 2025 • 11:01am

Who screams for ice cream? Kids in the Tenderloin, that’s who.

A red vintage Volkswagen bus belonging to family-owned Hometown Creamery (opens in new tab), its roof propped open by two oversize fiberglass ice cream cones, was parked on a pedestrianized block of Golden Gate Avenue Thursday afternoon to hand out scoops of Madagascar vanilla and chocolate sorbet to students of De Marillac Academy.

A line formed around the van almost immediately after school got out. By far, the most popular flavor was apple honey cake, with notes of brown sugar and cinnamon.

A red and white vintage ice cream van with a large ice cream cone sign on top serves customers on a city street with people gathered around it. — Hometown Creamery’s VW bus parked on a pedestrianized block of Golden Gate Avenue.

The hourlong pop-up was a pilot project between St. Anthony Foundation (opens in new tab) and Children of Shelters (opens in new tab), neighborhood nonprofits that had distributed vouchers for a free cone. The first of three ice cream socials over successive Thursdays, the sidewalk parlor was intended to test whether sufficient demand exists for a permanent shop in the underserved yet densely populated Tenderloin, which is filled with young people but has little for them to do after school — especially now that the closest mall has almost no tenants left.

“This is a neighborhood of 3,000 kids, and yet there’s not a single toy store, grocery store, or ice cream store,” said Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who represents the area. He cited nearby UN Plaza as a successful model for a transformed public space, noting that police action, followed by engagement from community ambassadors, had turned an area once known for drug consumption into an art-filled skateboarding hub. “Now you see kids skating there with their parents until 8 p.m.,” he said.

Several people said that if they could lure one local purveyor to open a Tenderloin location, it would be Mitchell’s Ice Cream (opens in new tab), the 72-year-old Noe Valley institution renowned for Filipino-derived flavors like halo halo and ube.

A bald man in a suit stands among a group of people, including children and adults, some of whom are eating or engaged in conversation outdoors. — District 5 supervisor Bilal Mahmood cites nearby UN Plaza as a successfully transformed public space.

A woman in a bright pink jacket smiles warmly while leaning out of a vehicle window, talking to a woman holding a child and another person nearby. — District Attorney Brooke Jenkins takes a shift inside the VW bus.

At present, there is no discussion underway for any specific ice cream shop to open a Tenderloin location. Saadi Halil, co-owner of Hometown Creamery and a former neighborhood resident, said between scoops that he was open to it. “The VW ice cream bus is a hit with the kids, and we’re already running out.”

A woman and a girl stand side by side holding waffle cones with ice cream, with a red and white van and urban buildings in the background. — Alicia Shaikh, 16, right, and her mother attend the pop-up, the first of three over the next several Thursdays.

Parents seemed optimistic that the school and nonprofits could get it done. “The neighborhood is what it is,” said Teresa Rondone, parent of a sixth-grader at De Marillac and a SoMa resident. “But this is a really good school, and then it brings stuff like this to the community.”

For their part, the children were into it too. Former De Marillac student Alicia Shaikh, 16, said she couldn’t think of a reason not to have an ice cream shop there. “Why not? It brings kids happiness. It brings everyone happiness. It’s ice cream!”