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San Francisco-based Smitten Ice Cream has closed its only Midpeninsula location after a short-term lease for its location inside the Whole Foods Los Altos expired, founder Robyn Sue Fisher confirmed Friday.
The shop’s last day was on April 30, according to a message posted outside. The store-within-a-store model was an experimental "prototype" for Smitten, Fisher said.
"We were intrigued to see what it would be like and had a great experience but are now looking for our own brick and mortar in the Palo Alto area instead," she wrote in an email.
Kirsten Aguilar scoops strawberry ice cream off the beaters of a Smitten "Brrr" machine at the Los Altos shop in 2014. Photo by Veronica Weber.
The message posted outside the shop urges local patrons to email Smitten if they see a location that would fit for the ice creamery at info@smittenicecream.com.
Fisher, a graduate of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, started Smitten by peddling her ice cream from a Radio Flyer wagon on the streets of San Francisco. With a retired engineer, she had built a now-patented machine that uses liquid nitrogen to serve made-to-order scoops.
The machines now feature prominently in Smitten’s stores.
Fisher opened her first brick-and-mortar shop in San Francisco in 2011. Smitten has since grown to nine locations in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.