Today we’d like to introduce you to Tocumbo Ice Cream. Them and their team share their story with us below:
Our uncle, Gerardo Ramirez, started Tocumbo Ice Cream in San Diego in 2004. He wanted to bring the specialty flavors of Mexican ice cream to his community. He named the shop after the small town in Michoacán that is the ice cream capital of Mexico. The small town is known to have the best ice cream and popsicles and most families in this town dedicate their livelihood to making ice cream. Gerardo learned from the best and brought exotic flavors that created nostalgia back to the community. At that time, many of the fruit & candy flavors were hard to find in the U.S. as they were specifically known in Mexico. His son and our cousin, Omar Ramirez, now owns and operates 3 locations in San Diego and helped us build the first Tocumbo Ice Cream in Orange County. We strive to continue to keep the essence of what our uncle built by offering the best customer service, a clean and inviting environment all while serving quality products. Tocumbo Anaheim is family-owned by Ricardo Quiroz & Margarita Quiroz. Their son Ricky makes all the ice cream while his sister, Jenny, helps him tend to customers, spearhead marketing and engages with the community. We have grown strong within the community especially through the pandemic as we maintained open by abiding to the necessary safety precautions. Most of our customers are working class, essential workers — we saw first hand how so many of them worked extra hard to manage the new realities. Many customers worked even more hours than ever before while some lost their jobs. We felt it necessary to continue to bring comfort through our product as a reprieve from the realities. We never skipped on quality and freshness and we wanted them to be transported in every bite to their childhood or a comforting memory when they tasted our ice cream.
We will continue to keep the story of the town of Tocumbo alive through our product and sharing of stories. We want people to understand just how important and part of our culture ice cream is to Mexican as gelato is to Italians.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It was challenging as none of us had ever worked in a restaurant setting before! There was a lot of trial and error in food purchasing, managing waste and figuring out what flavors were going to be successful in Orange County that maybe weren’t in San Diego. All we had to pull us through was our attentiveness to customer service and the integrity of our product. Another major challenge that we continue to work through is people’s perception of Mexican food and what prices assigned to it should be. Unfortunately, many people associate Mexican food with low prices but we use quality ingredients and in season fresh fruits. There are also some ingredients that we can only get from Mexico, so the cost to transport is high. There are some ingredients that we have to make ourselves, like our ‘chongos’ dessert, that last 5+ hours to make before we even turn it into ice cream. We want the people who buy ice cream at Salt & Straw and pay $6 for a single scoop to not be turned off by our $3 single scoop pricing.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
I, Jennifer Clausen-Quiroz, have over 10+ years in the fashion industry but it was always my dream to own an ice cream shop. After years of working alongside designers, doing product development in the intimates and swimwear categories, I decided to join my family and focus on the family ice cream business. I think that in business, it’s important to stay creative and think outside of what most believe to be the natural progression, what’s best for someone else may not be best for your business and personal life. Instead of opening up more brick and mortar shops, I am trying to focus on really integrating our business into the community. Some things my brother and I have pushed for have been school fundraisers, participating with the local library on a cardholder discount program, working with local creative kids who are making great art, and even collaborating with home cottage bakers to create specialty menu items. I’m hoping this collaboration within our customers and community sets us apart from our local competitors and keeps bringing customers back to us. During the pandemic, we grew our catering business exponentially. We acquired three paletero push carts and have since been busy bringing nostalgia and joy to our customers in the comfort of their homes through delicious popsicles and custom carts. We are most proud of our reach across generations, we feel very proud when grandma approves of our product and then the next time, she brings her adult child who then in return brings their young children who then bring their friends. We want people to understand that we are a family first and we treat our shop as our home and we are so proud of what we create and share with our guests.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
Thanks to our immigrant parents and family, we are able to live out our entrepreneurial dreams.
Pricing:
- Ice Cream: $2.75-$9.99
- Popsicles: $2.39-$3.25
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.tocumbooc.com
- Instagram: tocumbooc
- Facebook: tocumbooc
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/tocumbo-ice-cream-anaheim-2
Image Credits:
Anaheim Fire Department Photograph: Steven Georges/Behind the Badge
