When you open your door and find a giant cooler plastered with warning labels, packed with sublimating dry ice and full of ice cream, you know it’s going to be a good day. That’s doubly true when the ice cream comes from Double Rainbow, a Castro-based ice cream joint that has served San Franciscans since the 1970s.
According to an official history on Double Rainbow’s website, the company was founded by two childhood friends from the East Coast who sold ice cream together on the boardwalk at Coney Island. Decamping to the Bay Area in 1975, the pair launched an ice cream shop in the Castro the following year.
“Since that fateful day”, an older company history says, “Double Rainbow has been producing award-winning, super-premium, all-natural ice creams, and frozen desserts.” Indeed. Over the last 40-plus years, Double Rainbow has won awards including Best Ice Cream in America for their French Vanilla flavor. Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown even made Double Rainbow the Official Ice Cream of San Francisco, according to a press release from the company.
Today, Double Rainbow’s website lists more than 15 flavors, including their signature French Vanilla, Ultra Chocolate, Mint Chocolate Chip, and more. Double Rainbow has also always prided itself on innovating with dairy-free ice creams and plant-based ice cream alternatives for the vegan set. Among the company’s offerings are two soy-based flavors (Vanilla Bean and Mint Chocolate Chip), an oat milk-based flavor (Oat’s a Goody), and several dairy-free sorbets. Double Rainbow also has three organic flavors.
As I eagerly opened my own box and gingerly yanked pints of Double Rainbow’s ice cream from the insanely cold dry ice, I found that it contained Ultra Chocolate, the company’s Vanilla Bean soy cream, tangerine sorbet, and a PB&J flavor. (Double Rainbow sent me ice cream to try for this article, and I asked them to send a variety that reflects their favorite flavors and best sellers).Side note: Working in food journalism sounds like a tough life, right?
After letting my ice cream’s temperature normalize in the freezer for about 24 hours, I dug in and sampled each flavor. Double Rainbow makes super-premium ice cream, which means that its flavors contain very little air or fillers. They’re dense, milky, and delicious.
The Ultra Chocolate has a rich, deep chocolate flavor which really comes into its own as the ice cream begins to melt. I slathered it with whipped cream and threw on some sprinklers for an impromptu sundae. Heaven. Double Rainbow’s Vanilla Soycream tasted like frozen horchata to me — creamy and flavorful, but in a lighter, more subtle way than dairy ice cream. The Tangerine sorbet was bright and refreshing — perfect for a Summer BBQ.
The standout winner for me, though, was the PB&J ice cream. I expected it to be vanilla ice cream with some peanut butter and jelly swirled in, but it was so much more — an improbable mix of raspberry sorbet, vanilla ice cream, and peanut butter which tasted exactly like the eponymous sandwich. The creaminess of the ice cream and tartness of the sorbet made for a fantastic contrast, and the peanut butter added richness and depth. It’s an incredible flavor and one you should seek out.
Ironically for a Castro-based company with rainbows in its logo, Double Rainbow’s name isn’t a reference to the Pride flag, which was created two years after the ice cream shop opened. Rather, the name refers to the fact that the founders saw a rare double rainbow on the day they opened their store. Still, Double Rainbow has embraced its place in the Castro and in San Francisco’s history, sponsoring a Bluegrass Pride event, hosting a Rainbow Hour during Pride 2021, and donating a portion of their sales to SF Pride throughout June of this year.
Sign up for The Bold Italic newsletter to get the best of the Bay Area in your inbox every week.
Double Rainbow occupies an important place in San Francisco’s culinary history, and continues to innovate with new flavors which are very much of the time (oat milk, am I right?). Check them out if you’re in the Castro, or take advantage of their ice cream delivery options for your July 4 BBQ.
Double Rainbow’s scoop shop is located at 415 Castro in San Francisco. You can also order their ice cream online for nationwide delivery, or find select flavors at Whole Foods Market.
