For creative flavors like Secret Breakfast (bourbon ice cream with corn flakes) or Cornflake Crunch (cereal milk ice cream with cornflake cookies), head to Humphry Slocombe. We like stopping by this Ferry Building shop and creating our own sundae with their house-made bourbon caramel or hot fudge before eating it on a nearby bench by the bay. You can also find pints at a bunch of grocery stores around the city.

Mitchell’s has been around since 1953, and these days the ice cream spot is synonymous with “quintessential San Francisco.” The small family-run creamery on San Jose Avenue usually draws long lines thanks to flavors like banana, cantaloupe, ube, and buko. The best part is their ice cream comes in endless forms, from cups, cones, and sundaes to splits, milkshakes, and ice cream sandwiches.

Milkbomb serves great ice cream, but our favorite thing at this Portrero Hill shop is their Milkbomb Sandwich. Imagine several scoops of ice cream packed into a halved glazed donut, then griddled until warm, and topped with ingredients like torched marshmallow fluff and cereal. The bun gets soft, while the ice cream stays miraculously firm. Get thai tea or avocado if they’re available.

We probably aren’t the first to tell you that Salt & Straw knows how to make some damn good ice cream. Their lineup of creative flavors range from honey lavender and chocolate malted potato chip cupcake to their even more unexpected monthly-changing flavors like mashed potatoes and gravy. So, if you’re passing by either of their locations in Pacific Heights of Hayes Valley and smell the serotonin-inducing scent of fresh waffle cones, you should definitely stop by.

This snug, cash-only ice cream shop in the Fillmore has been around since the early '90s and is covered from floor to ceiling with colorful candy jars and ice cream flavor lists. They serve locally made ice cream from Mitchell’s and Dreyer’s, and have over 100 flavors—everything from ube (our go-to) to cookie dough to Mexican chocolate. They don’t skimp on the scoops.

This spot in the Inner Sunset (with another location in Hayes Valley) makes their ice cream in small batches, with house-made ingredients. Their rotating list of flavors is excellent, including coffee and donuts, honey berry breakfast, and—our favorite—mint chip (made with fresh mint). Another plus: you can order “smidges,” golf ball-sized scoops that are perfect if you want to try a bunch of different flavors without needing to bust out the Lactaid.

Being Dolores Park-adjacent (and also churning out fantastic ice cream) means there’ll most likely be a line at Bi-Rite. But said lines move quickly, and it’s worth waiting to get some of their incredibly smooth soft serve or a scoop of their mainstay ice cream flavors like ricanelas, salted caramel, or cookies and cream. Whichever you choose, it's guaranteed to be perfectly creamy.

When you have the urge to consume a cold, creamy dessert, stat, Polly Ann in the Outer Sunset is here for you. In addition to the classics like chocolate and vanilla, Polly Ann has a great selection of Asian-influenced flavors, like green tea, durian, black sesame, and jasmine. They also have ice cream cakes, milkshakes, soft serve, and sundaes.

You’ll definitely want to stop by this family-run store the next time you’re in the Mission. The dessert spot has a small grocery store in the back, along with everything from Mexican sorbet to ice cream to milkshakes. The star of the show, though, is the mangonada: a cup filled with mango sorbet and tangy chamoy sauce, piled to the brim with fresh, juicy mango. It’s refreshing and the perfect on-the-go dessert to take with you to Dolores Park.

There aren’t many ice cream shops in town where you can ride a coin-operated pony. This Clement St. mainstay has been around for decades, and now, they’re owned by Jane the Bakery, which mostly just means you can also buy bread here. They serve ice cream by Double Rainbow, Mitchell’s, and SF’s Hometown Creamery, all of which get majorly dressed up with creative sundae combinations—think marshmallow fluff and graham crackers, or meringue pieces with strawberry and whipped cream.

At Smitten, they use liquid nitrogen to churn your ice cream to order—and the result is phenomenal, ultra-smooth ice cream. The cookie dough with pretzels and chocolate chips is our default order, and you can get your scoop topped with everything from chocolate syrup to cookie dough chunks. Make sure to ask about what seasonal flavors they have on rotation like their spicy honey and lavender earl grey with quinoa.

The frozen dessert you’ll get at Powder in the Lower Haight is like a cross between shaved ice and ice cream—it’s light, airy, and immediately melts in our mouth. These colorful ribbons of Taiwanese shaved snow are made with condensed milk and ice, which you can get topped with cereal, marshmallows, mochi, and more. Our usual order is the cereal snow with cinnamon sugar, which is basically the frozen version of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

An old-school spot on a corner in Russian Hill, Swensen’s is an SF classic that has more than stood the test of time—likely in large part to its selection of fantastic ice cream. Black raspberry marble, cookies ’n cream, and thin mint are the flavors we gravitate to, but no matter what you go with, get a cone. No one has ever regretted a house-made waffle cone from here.

Garden Creamery has phenomenal, mostly Asian-inspired flavors that attract daily lines to their storefront in the Mission. The menu changes, but expect to see thai tea, black sesame, butter mochi, and ume—plus a fruitier non-dairy section with coconut-pandan and orange creamsicle. Our favorites are the tea-heavy flavors like hojicha and genmaicha.

If you want to give your afternoon a little kick, there's Ice Cream Bar. The Dublin Honey (Guinness with port and honey ice cream) is excellent, and if you can finish an entire shake in one sitting, please give yourself a pat on the back. The Cole Valley spot is set up as a retro ice cream fountain, though the ice cream flavors are modern and change seasonally—the malted peanut butter cookie is a standout.

Ice cream and fresh-from-the-oven cookies are more of a power duo than Zooey Deschanel and that one Property Brother—and luckily, all we have to do to get some is pop over to the Marina and order one of Over the Moon’s massive ice cream cookie sandwiches. If you want to elevate the experience, get the ice cream in a chocolate chip, cookies and cream, or snickerdoodle cookie cup—it’s an excellent way to expedite your impending sugar rush.