Get as crazy as you can imagine at this Fisherman's Wharf ice cream shop that pairs cookies, ice cream, and toppings. Just take a look at the Baked Bear Instagram from some flavor inspiration. Stroll down to the wharf for takeout, or order delivery through several apps.

Everyone knows Ghirardelli for its chocolate, but those who’ve played tourist for a bit at Ghirardelli Square know the ice cream sundae side of operations is where the sweet spot is. The sundaes are a bit over the top, but sometimes what you want in a sundae is drama — scoops of ice cream and a brownie in a sundae glass or boat or chocolate-dipped waffle bowl drizzled with an insane amount of chocolate or caramel sauce and topped with cherry.

The unexpected flavors at this Portland-founded ice cream shop will make more sense to your tongue than your brain. Green apple mayo sherbet and peach vinegar cobbler with toasted nutmeg, for example, don't enjoy the same recognition as classic flavors like chocolate chip or strawberry. That's what's so intriguing about Salt & Straw, where unique flavors are often churned with ingredients from local food producers like Sightglass Coffee and Berkeley olive oil.

Toy Boat by Jane is the revived version of Clement Street’s 38-year-old classic ice cream shop, courtesy of Amanda Michael, the owner of SF mini-chain Jane the Bakery. Michael went to great lengths to preserve the nostalgia of Toy Boat, including the vast toy collection, and opened in September 2020 selling Jane’s bakery breads, cookies, and pastries, and, excitingly, adding Double Rainbow Ice Cream.

This no-frills classic scoop shop doesn't pull any punches, offering Americana standards such as root beer swirl and rum raisin, or more unconventional flavors like wasabi and chai tea. One thing’s for sure: it’s still serving up ice cream straight from your SF childhood — even after a 2010 move across the street.

Head back in time at this classic 1930s-inspired soda fountain shop serving up vintage phosphates, lactarts, malts, plus boozy milkshakes, ice cream soda floats, and ice cream sandwiches in vegan options, too. There’s another location in the Castro, with more maple syrup or chicory coffee ice cream shakes.

Head to this unassuming Mexican ice cream shop tucked into a Mission market for flavors like corn, guava, and leche quemada (burnt milk). Order it by the scoop, in a banana split, or go for a combination of fruit and toppings like a mangonada made with mango sorbet, fresh mango, chile, lime, and tamarind. Check out its sister shop in Fruitvale, too.

If ice cream is a dessert that already makes you weak in the knees, Milkbomb will give you more ways to enjoy your treat. From unique flavors like the Fruity Pebbles or White Rabbit, to a mangonada — made of mango puree, chamoy, and Tajin — there’s also the added appeal of sandwiching those flavors inside a doughnut or ube pandesal bread and having it topped with melted marshmallow.

Small-batch, seasonal, hand-made, and local ice cream is the calling card at San Francisco’s arguably most-popular scoop shop. Lines usually snake out the door and down the block with people waiting for tastes of salted caramel and balsamic strawberry, two of Bi-Rite’s most popular flavors, or the more unusual options like basil and honey lavender.

A second sweets shop from the Ice Cream Bar’s Juliet Prie, the Castro Fountain has an extensive menu of cakes and baked goods on top of fresh-churned ice cream — or rather, to put that ice cream on top of. Like its predecessor, the shop’s style is that of an old-school soda fountain, so go ahead, split a sundae, a float, or a piece of photogenic rainbow cake with a scoop of ice cream on the side. One ice cream flavor, Yass Queen, even has bits of that rainbow cake inside it.

Garden Creamery is the Mission District ice cream shop that became an Instagram star for opening with churro-like chimney cones, made with sweet yeast dough baked and covered in cinnamon sugar. Garden Creamy offers an array of Hawaiian-influenced flavors (including some non-dairy options), as well as matcha with toasted rice, black sesame, plus Mexican and Manila mango, salted plum, and Thai tea.

Have flavor fatigue? Leave your fate in the hands of Polly Ann, where you can spin the wheel and let it decide which of the more than 500 rotating flavors you’ll be trying today. The shop, which has been open since the 1950s, often has Asian flavors like durian, lychee and jasmine on display, as well as classics like rocky road and mint chocolate chip.

Get your weird on with experimental flavors at this crazy popular Mission ice cream destination (with an outpost in the Ferry Building, too). The most-talked-about flavor is Secret Breakfast, made with vanilla, cornflake cookies and Jim Beam bourbon, but there’s no shortage of wacky options such as prosciutto, cheese, mushrooms, and foie gras from evil ice cream genius Jake Godby.

Named for the explorer said to have introduced Italy to ice cream by way of China, Marco Polo Italian Ice Cream serves its frozen treat the other way round, with scoops of gelato-like creaminess in Asian flavors. Try lychee, green tea, black sesame, or durian, made from the fruit that’s famously banned on public transit in Singapore for its strong smell. Opened in 1982, Marco Polo Italian Ice Cream is a favorite gathering spot in far flung Parkside, and a second location opened in San Jose in 2015.