An’s Hatmakers – SD

Although cute themes and gimmicks can make ice cream and gelato shops memorable, long-term success depends upon having both great desserts and reasons for patrons to keep coming back for more. A perfect example is San Diego’s chain of An’s gelaterias, which started in 2018 by repurposing a former dry cleaner’s shop into An’s Dry Cleaning in North Park, followed by the Del Mar location An’s Hatmakers, An’s Athletic Field Services at Petco Park, and An’s Electronics Repair in Ocean Beach. While preserving certain decor elements and using themes as inspiration for gelato names, all of these stores serve bowls, cones, and drinks rather than the goods or services their locations were previously known for, continuously generating buzz on the strength of their seasonally rotating menus of unique flavors.

An’s hooks visitors by offering free flavor tours – kicked off with a palate-cleansing mint/lime sorbet, followed by metal spooned samples of seven possible flavors. On our first visit to An’s Hatmakers, the seven flavors shown as current on the website alternated between availability as scoops and/or pints, with additional flavors swapped in and sold solely in one form or the other. That meant Carbon Fiber (cold brew coffee/Nutella hybrid) and Full Grain Leather (brown butter/brookies) were sadly only sold in pint form, swapped for Calico (pumpkin butter/cream cheese) and Bandana (blueberry pie). On our second visit, Leather remained available alongside mostly different flavors, including Straw-Hat (mango/passionfruit), Fascinator (strawberry sorbet), Mixmaster (salted butter/cinnamon/vanilla), Coppola (cookies/cream/Nutella), Visor (roasted pistachio), and CA Snapback (Dubai-style dark chocolate and pistachio).

The flavors we tried on both visits all ranged from good to great. Our top pick on visit one was Santa’s Hat, billed as “midnight cocoa and peppermint” with powerful doses of each flavor, plus wonderfully unexpected large slices of semi-sweet chocolate candy inside; strong pistachios in the Visor and CA Snapback made both of them excellent flavors – quite possibly the nuttiest frozen pistachio treats we’ve ever tasted.