Business Briefing: Frozen treat brands scoop up SF locations

Should everything go as planned for siblings Cielo Garat-Zanella and her older brother, Ignacio "Iggy" Garat, the third San Francisco location for their Angela’s Ice Cream will open in the city’s LGBTQ Castro district in time for the holidays this December. They are taking over the vacant corner storefront at Noe and 18th streets that once housed a 7-Eleven convenience store.

It should come a month after they open their second location in the Fillmore in early November at 3108C Fillmore Street. They opened Angela’s first San Francisco location July 25 at 3751 24th Street on the corner of Chattanooga.

“We had this crazy idea, which I am proud of, to open three stores in San Francisco at the same time,” Garat, 37, who is gay, told the Bay Area Reporter in early October at the Noe Valley location.

The family-owned company, which is based in Sonoma County, is the latest frozen treat brand with LGBTQ ownership to scoop up vacant retail spaces in San Francisco. Two years ago, during Pride Month in June, Ilary “Hila” Biondo opened her Hila Gelato Caffè at 951 Valencia Street.

The Sicilian-born Biondo, 39, who had owned a renowned gelato shop in her home country, had moved to the U.S. in early 2023 to be with her now-wife, who works in the tech industry. She took over the Mission District space where gelato shop Xanath had been for 13 years. She began serving up her special recipe for the frozen treat made with pure organic cane sugar and fresh milk. (She uses less sugar than is usually found in gelato, which also has no eggs or cream.)

Making artisanal gelato, Biondo said, “this is my mission.”

She spoke with the B.A.R. in between a constant stream of customers of her pop-up inside the downtown building One Market at 1 Market Street. She opened up the gelato stall and cafe serving up Caffe Vergnano coffee in early September after being invited by the property manager to do so.

“The city helped me and now I am very popular,” Biondo said of local residents embracing her gelato and patronizing her business. “Now, I want to help the building; I want to help the city. I stay here and open another shop.”

To the left of her stand is the first retail space for gay-owned The Chaga Company, which the Business Briefing column profiled back in 2020. In addition to selling his chaga mushroom infused products, Gavin Escolar is also selling his signature onesies.

He opened his Chaga + Onesie King retail space in August amid efforts by civic and business leaders to populate retail spaces throughout the Financial District amid an upswing of workers returning to their offices and tourists coming back to the city post the early years of the COVID pandemic that hampered people’s travel plans and led many to work from home.

Via the city’s Vacant to Vibrant program Koolfi Creamery earlier this year signed a long-term lease for the alleyway space it opened in last year at 50 Fremont Street, which is owned by Salesforce. The queer and immigrant women-owned business that began in San Leandro specializes in Indian-inspired ice creams made fresh with local products.

Biondo makes her gelato in small batches throughout the day in flavors like Sicily ricotta with chocolate chip or strawberry drizzled with Colavita Balsamic Vinegar of Modena from Italy. Due to the limited supply, samples of the gelato are not offered.

A kid’s cup costs $5, while two scoops costs $7. Some flavors cost a $1 extra, such as the mango gelato with Tajin, a chili/lime seasoning.

“I change the flavors all the time,” noted Biondo, who also ran a restaurant and wine bar in her hometown of Palermo, Sicily.

It was where she first met her spouse, Ceci, in 2022. Within six months she had sold her motorcycle, packed up her belongings, and headed for a new adventure in San Francisco.

Biondo is already looking to open a third Hila location in North Beach due to it being the city’s Italian neighborhood. Her plan is to do so sometime in 2026, unless the right location were to come along sooner, she told the B.A.R.

“This is my dream,” said Biondo, who offers gelato-making classes at her Valencia location.

Castro ice creamery
The Angela’s location in the Castro was to have opened in early October, but construction issues delayed the process. Not only are the Garat siblings adding windows to the Noe Street facade, they discovered the old coolers in the space had rotted the flooring, which had to be entirely replaced.

The work is being done by Pryor Contractors, which Garat co-owns with Carla Alguzzi. They launched the construction company, based out of Petaluma, two years ago.

“I can see the opportunity because I know how much work it takes to change a space,” Garat said of the transformation planned for the Castro location. “Each location has a connection to its neighborhood.”

The siblings are working with designer Delia Albarrán, whom Garat first met via a friend while living in Mexico City. The interior of the Castro location will have a similar clean look as the Noe Valley space but pay homage to the LGBTQ neighborhood and its Victorian residences.

They plan to have sidewalk tables and chairs on the Noe Street side. There will also be counter space to sell coffee drinks and their in-house made chocolates, which they first debuted this fall at the Noe Valley location.

It is especially meaningful to be opening in the famed LGBTQ neighborhood, said Garat, who since August has been living in the city’s Hayes Valley neighborhood.

“I have lived in Argentina, Mexico City, and Los Angeles, but this is the first time I feel I am going to be in a place where I feel fully at ease,” said Garat. “In Mexico City, I had a closeted boyfriend, and we couldn’t be seen together in public. I now have a new boyfriend of six months, who happens to also be Mexican, but he is out, and we can hold hands walking in the Castro. It feels like I am at home and a place of ease.”

The Castro and Noe Valley locations are in sunnier, warmer parts of their respective neighborhoods, making them ideal places to serve up ice cream in a city famous for its foggy, windy weather. (A single scoop on a cake cone costs $6.75) They already have felt embraced by Noe Valley residents, said Garat-Zanella, 30, who has a toddler son with her husband and lives in Santa Rosa.

“Something I’ve noticed about the neighborhood itself, is our clientele are very vocal in the best way. They tell us what flavors they want and how they are enjoying the space,” said Garat-Zanella, who comes up with most of the recipes for Angela’s ice creams, such as the autumnal special flavor of pumpkin cream cheese that just debuted.

The siblings launched Angela’s in Petaluma in 2017, along with their mother, Angela Pryor-Garat. Named in honor of the family’s matriarch, the business now has five North Bay locations, in Forestville, Healdsburg, Mill Valley, and two in Petaluma.

Earlier this year Pryor-Garat and her husband, Ignacio, moved to the city’s Bayview neighborhood due to their opening the restaurant Flora King at 4248 18th Street in the Castro. It is four blocks west of where the ice cream shop will be opening.

Due to the expansion of Angela’s into San Francisco, and the growth in local retailers carrying its ice cream pints, the family is expanding into a larger commercial kitchen space in Santa Rosa in January in order to meet the demand for its small-batch ice creams. Garat often commutes up to the North Bay to oversee the operations and check in on the other stores.

He and his sister also own Iggy’s Organic Burger in Healdsburg, California. They are expanding to Sebastopol and Santa Rosa, and may also bring the eatery to San Francisco at some point, said Garat.

He already is pushing his sister to open a fourth Angela’s location in the city. They’ve been bandying about which neighborhood to move into next, perhaps sometime in 2026.
“We are very ambitious. It is a family trait,” noted Garat-Zanella.

To learn more about Biondo’s gelato business, as well as the hours for her locations and to sign up for her gelato-making classes, visit its website.

For more information about Angela’s Ice Cream and its various locations and offerings, visit its website .

Got a tip on LGBTQ business news? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 829-8836 or email [email protected].