Retro Cool Ice Cream in B'game

Mercury News reporters Linda Zavoral and Jessica Yadegaran put on some miles (and possibly some pounds) while building a list of the 10 beloved Bay Area ice cream shops, from the classic to the eclectic.  From Orinda and Pleasanton to San Jose to B'game where they noted Preston's celebrated its 75th anniversary last year:

RETRO COOL: Preston’s Candy & Ice Cream, Burlingame

The vintage signs outside and the checkerboard floor inside are reason enough to put Preston’s on any list of beloved ice cream parlors. It’s a look that transports you to yesteryear. New owner Javier Santiago, a career chocolatier, bought the iconic shop recently from longtime owner Irene Preston and vowed to keep making her customers’ nostalgic favorites — honeycomb, peanut brittle, pecan turtles — while making a name for himself with his contemporary chocolate bars under the Javier Confectionery brand.

Santiago is also keeping the ice cream tradition alive. The shop scoops 20 to 30 flavors of Loard’s ice cream ($4.95 for a small cone or cup, $5.95 medium), and he’s making the often-requested Presti Bars ($5.65), ice cream sandwiched between two freshly baked cookies and covered in chocolate. The bars come in several flavors, including vanilla, burgundy cherry and espresso.

The scoop: The top seller is the Mint Chip ice cream, and it’s easy to see why. Preston’s makes the mint chocolate candy, then Loard’s uses that to create this custom flavor for Preston’s.

My first paycheck job was at Friendly's where I was a short order cook, washed dishes, mowed the lawn and, yes, scooped a lot of ice cream.  Black raspberry was my favorite.  I'll have to stop into Preston's and see if they have some!  Kudos to Javier on a nice press hit.

Comments

[HMB]

Javier Santiago's chocolates are SO GOOD!!! Those bars -- YUM!!!

[hollyroller@ gmail.com]

Retro:
Shaw's. On ECR in Millbrae was my favorite place. The toys, Gifts, colors, and the aroma were incredible. That was a long time ago.

[Mark Lucchesi]

Joe, I did a podcast last year with Irene Preston. What a wonderful hardworking lady. Indeed she sold the shop to Santiago who is doing an excellent job in revitalizing the landmark store. Kudos to Irene and all the hard work and passion that she poured into the store. Mark at the Mic

[Joe]

Thanks, Mark. I will save readers the work of finding the podcast. It's here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4NjV-dzUJk

Also added a photo of the historic signage!

[hollyroller@ gmail.com]

Did anyone know that the last COB Recreation Supervisor got his start in Burlingame, CA. at the Ice Cream Store on Burlingame Ave? There are plenty of photos available for purchase.
Those Uniforms were awesome. The "Flair" and the required Hair Net was Scary.

[Jennifer Pfaff]

Do you mean Randy Schwartz? Do you mean Baskin Robbins, Double Rainbow?-- before it (was) burned down. My brother got his first summer job at Baskin Robbins in the 1970s, and he lasted one day since he is colorblind. Bummer getting mint chip mixed up with the strawberry...I do not recall hair nets, but again, it was short-lived.

[Joe]

The DJ is catching up with this piece yesterday:

While the previous owner, Irene Preston, struggled through COVID and was forced to sell, Santiago looks to revitalize the business and breathe new life into one of Broadway’s oldest businesses. The shop was first opened in 1946 by Art Preston and purchased by Irene Preston, who had no relationship to the shop founder, in 1997.

Santiago took a page out of his mother’s cookbook. Every morning, he gets to Preston’s around 6 a.m. and starts cooking.

“This is my therapy,” he said as he swirled a large wooden cooking paddle around a caramel-filled brass bowl first gifted to the original owner by San Francisco chocolatier Douglas Shaw to whom Art Preston apprenticed.

The store will be having a grand reopening party on Aug. 19 where Santiago will be passing out samples of his candies. Small ice cream scoops will be sold for $3.

https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/burlingame-s-sweetest-legacy/article_a811b5f8-2f78-11ee-a33f-13617845b095.html?utm_source=smdailyjournal.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletters%2Fheadlines%2F%3F-dc%3D1690812021&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline

Aug. 19th is Art on the Avenue as well so they will have some competition.

[Joe]

The Merc is highlighting Javier's journey and Preston's being saved!!!!

After more than 75 years, Preston’s Candy in Burlingame was on the verge of closing; an immigrant chocolatier knew he had to save it

At 15, Javier Santiago found work at a chocolate factory to help support his family back in Mexico

At Preston’s Candy in Burlingame, chocolatier Javier Santiago has used chocolate to inspire a few miracles over the years, including his most recent one: saving Preston’s from going out of business after more than 75 years in operation. He purchased the store from longtime owner Irene Preston (no relation to the original owner, Art Preston) to keep the business alive last year.

Now the store is buzzing again, his peanut brittle is in high demand and his chocolate-covered honeycomb is so good, it got its own ice cream flavor.

https://bayareane.ws/476Tgrt

[Jennifer Pfaff]

Bravo Javier!

[Russ]

I want to add that it was all started by the late Art Preston in 1958. Oddly,no relation to who came next, Irene Preston.
Art had two very impressive collections. The first was his chocolate molds which were everywhere in the upstairs cooking area of the store and the other, which he proudly displayed in his home was a massive collection of miniature liquor bottles. Not the ones you see in the liquor store, but fancy ones depicting sculpture like representations of everything from automobiles to nudes to whimsical characters. I was lucky to see it on several occasions.I hope the new owners carry on the tradition of making thousands of chocolate eggs for the Burlingame Lions Easter Egg Hunt.