San Francisco · ice cream
Swensen's
The oldest working counterpoint in this city's ice cream story: an unchanged Russian Hill parlor that has made every scoop on site since 1948, survived its own franchise engulfing the rest of the world, and is now the last Swensen's left in the country while continuing to be run, in person, by the third owning generation.
What we know
- Every drop of ice cream made in-house at the same Russian Hill corner since 1948, about 150 gallons a day, per the current head ice cream maker
- Only two owners in the shop's history: founder Earle Swensen and Richard Campana, who started as a 15-year-old part-time staffer in 1959 and ran the business for Swensen from 1964
- The founding location retained exclusive rights and never franchised, even as Swensen sold franchise rights for the wider chain in the 1970s
- Now the last operating Swensen's in the United States: the final other US franchise location closed in Coral Gables, Florida, in April 2021
- Ownership passed to the third generation, Campana's daughter Diane and son-in-law Jim Laughlin, who took over in June 2020 during the pandemic rather than let the shop close
- Status
- open
- Address
- 1999 Hyde St, San Francisco, CA 94109
- Maker
- Earle Swensen, founder; Richard Campana, second owner since 1964; currently operated by Campana's daughter Diane Campana and her husband Jim Laughlin, head ice cream maker since 2020
- Opened
- 1948
- Website
- swensensofsf.com/
- Last checked
- 2026-08-21
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