McConnell’s Ice Cream is a Scoop of Summer
Photography by Jennifer Olson
When it touches the cold, velvety globe of frozen cream atop a crunchy sugar cone, Michael Palmer’s tongue is not only searching for the chunks of corn bread tucked inside his favorite flavor of McConnell’s Fine Ice Creams. This indulgence is also a matter of inspection and analysis for Michael, who views each scoop of ice cream served under the McConnell’s brand as a test of his company’s commitment to quality.
“Good doesn’t satisfy us,” Michael says. “Because good is the enemy of great.”
For the past nine years since Michael and his wife, Eva Ein, took over McConnell’s, he has developed a near obsession with quality. That’s why the famed Central Coast company, opened in 1949 by Gordon and Ernestine McConnell, continues churning out its classic flavors from a full- fledged dairy facility.
“No one builds a new dairy these days,” Michael says. “But the original dairy just wasn’t up to par anymore so about three years ago, we built our own dairy complete with a commercial kitchen in Oxnard.”
That kitchen is where a pastry chef leads a small team in preparing by hand the cookies, breads, jams and other add-ins, known as variegates, that characterize each flavor. If an ingredient appears in a McConnell’s ice cream, whether it’s a scoop at the San Luis Obispo shop or a pint at the Metro Market grocery store in Milwaukee, it has been closely scrutinized by Michael and his team.
This judicious appraisal of ingredients means McConnell’s incorporates cage-free eggs and not soy lecithin, as the emulsifying agent within its simple blend of pure cane sugar, milk and cream.
“There are a lot of ice creams out there filled with stabilizers and air,” Michael says. “It’s barely ice cream.”
This commitment to true ingredients didn’t start with Michael and Eva. Before debuting the ice cream business in Santa Barbara some 70 years ago, Gordon McConnell owned and operated health food stores. It’s ironic then, according to stories passed on to Michael by the entrepreneur’s widow, that Gordon’s nagging sweet tooth would compel him to consume a bowl of ice cream almost daily. When he decided to start his own line of ice creams, Gordon believed his product had to be both delicious and made of fine ingredients.
That ethos continued even after Gordon’s death, when the business was later sold to Jim McCoy, who looked north to Cal Poly’s dairy program for a production manager. For the next 37 years, until his recent retirement, Mike Vierra used his expertise as both a Cal Poly graduate and fourth-generation dairy farmer to catapult McConnell’s ice creams to a standard of quality that’s outlasted time and trend.
“Before it was trendy to be ‘local’ and to use real ingredients, we were doing that,” Michael says. “The world is finally catching up to McConnell’s.”
The company’s nearly 60-year-long partnership with RR Lochhead Vanilla in Paso Robles and its regular sourcing of cream from SLO County dairy cows are a testament to its values. While some competitors unveil off-the-wall flavors simply for media hype, McConnell’s small production staff of about 30 people hone in on the mainstays.
“Any time we bring a new flavor to the table or even consider opening a new scoop shop, it’s purposeful,” Michael says. “Having a shop in San Luis Obispo made sense because we have such a great connection to Cal Poly’s agriculture department. The city is emblematic of all things special about the Central Coast, like a sister community to Santa Barbara.”
With the brand’s recent unveiling of a dairy-free line and it’s expansion to six brick and mortar locations, Michael says he’s careful to stay true to the McConnell’s way. And he knows with each bite of his favorite honey and cornbread ice cream he’s maintaining that authenticity because he hears it from Ernestine McConnell herself.
“She’s like a mother to me, we talk all the time,” Michael says of the now 102-year-old woman. “When Gordon passed, it was tough for her to sell. But when my wife and I bought the brand, she said it was like a coming home, another husband-wife team taking it on. She gets excited to see our pints in the grocery store and she’s happy the McConnell’s name still means quality.”
