Marianne's Ice Cream

In tonight's Living in the 831 segment, we got a taste of a local legacy in Santa Cruz. I got to speak with one business owner of Mary Ann's ice cream there who told me why their ice cream is a Santa Cruz staple. Pretty much saying that the secret ingredient comes down to the Santa Cruz community bringing in local flavor. We serve at this location about 80 flavors every day and we make over 150 different recipes throughout the year. Meet Charlie, co-owner of Mary Ann's ice cream. Mary Ann's has been around for 78 years which kind of means that if you've lived in Santa Cruz at any point in your life you've got something that's connected with us and hopefully we've got something that's done well with you. Mary Ann's ice cream started in 1947 is a local legacy and best enjoyed by Santa Cruises as well as people from across the Central Coast over connection and memories. I think it's really about your memories, your life. It's not nostalgic so much as that it's anchor that brings you home. When you come here Charlie says that while the ice cream used to be made at their Ocean Street site, the flagship shop, since they've grown over the decades so has the need for more space. Now the ice cream is made in their ice cream factory on the west side. We take our cream, milk, whey, sugar obviously as part of it and all those ingredients we mix them together and we run them through a machine that chills them down to about 20 degrees in about two minutes. The machine will actually make about 150 gallons of ice cream. One of Mary Ann's popular flavors was inspired by the rowdy and territorial otter 841 a few years back. As she was getting ready to raise a new pup, she stole some of the surfboards and would take a bite out of them. Our cinnamon caramel base ice cream is a really unsung hero. It has a little bite. That's good. That'sweet. It's cute. Charlie says that while it may get overwhelming with how many flavors they offer, Mary Ann's is still quite open to new, fun and weird flavor requests. So making new fun, weird stuff for a lot longer than everybody else has. And that's why it really is our signature. So coming in, you see our flavor ball. Charlie also told me that when you visit a new town, you're supposed to ask where the best ice cream is because he says if it's a small place that means that location that town has some soul.