San Francisco, 1975: Castro Street leaves Market Street and climbs a big hill. Past the top, descending, you come to 24th street. There you’ll find Bud Edlin’s ice cream store. The sign says “Bud’s Ice Cream.”
Fabulously popular. Bud’s secret?
Most ice creams have a butterfat content around 16%. Bud’s ice cream has a butterfat content around 22%.
I learned this from Phil Groves, the first client of Simple Simon Bookkeeping Service, my first business. Phil sold Bud’s ice cream from a shop in the Haight Ashbury area. The name of Phil’s store was “Raskin-Flakker’s Ice Cream”. He thought that was funny.
Of course, the real story is that Bud Edlin refused to permit anybody to sell his ice cream. Approached many times, he always turned it down.
So when Phil Groves decided that he wanted to open a store selling Bud’s ice cream, he didn’t know how to go about it.
Now picture Bud’s store on the corner. The big windows, and the front door, are on Castro, and like most San Francisco shops, the shop was long and narrow. The back room, where the ice cream was made, therefore had a door opening onto 24th street, and in the summertime this door was usually open.
There in that doorway stood Phil Groves.
Age? Perhaps 28-30. Bud Edlin was working there in the back room, making ice cream in big stainless steel machines, and wheeling the packages around. If you’ve never seen one, a commercial container of ice cream is a cylinder about two feet tall and a foot across. That is to say, it’s large and heavy.
Phil was afraid to say anything to Bud Edlin, so he just stood there, paralysed. He couldn’t speak; and he couldn’t leave.
Bud looked up from time to time, but said nothing. It was a hot day and Bud was working hard. This went on for some time. Finally Bud said, “Hand me that container.”
Phil fetched the container. Bud gave him more instructions. Phil did it. The remainder of the afternoon passed in this manner.
Toward the end of the day, Bud said, “What do you want?”
“I want to sell your ice cream,” Phil replied.
Bud nodded. “OK.”
Laughing, laughing, laughing. Sometimes things “just happen”! Something very encouraging in this story.
I went to college up the hill from Raskin Flakkers and used to go there from time to time. Really special ice cream. What a treat
Me, too. I lived at Anza and 3rd Ave at that time. And also, Phil learned the secret to Bud Edlin’s ice-cream and why it was so good. He learned it because Bud told him. The secret? Most ice-creams have about 15% butterfat. Bud’s ice cream? 22% butterfat. Now you know.
We loved Raskin-Flakkers! We lived on 2nd Ave at clement & used to walk over with all our friends. it ws the first time I had raspberry ice cream with hot fudge – we still talk about it!
Since I lived at 3rd Ave at Anza (3 blocks from where you lived), we probably saw each other around the hood. Funny, innit?
Glad to find this site. We used to walk over from Ashbury to Flakkers but did not know it was Bud’s, which I frequented while living on 25th/Castro before Ashbury in 1975.
Have 2 photos of friends outside Flakkers enjoying cones, wish I could see menu, because names were Fudge Sirica (judge at Chicago 7 trial) & Cherry Garcia. They also had broken cones for dogs. Once they had none available, but then someone “Oops, dropped one” – happy puppy.
Thanks for your note. I’ve many good memories of Raskin-Flakkers and of my pal Phil Groves who owned it. Last I heard, now more than 20 years ago, he was living in the Seattle area. I owe him a lot. Funny how connections lead you hear and there – from the poster for my bookkeeping service that I placed on the wall on the stairway leading downstairs at City Lights Bookstore, to bookkeeping for Phil, to getting a motorcycle, to meeting this woman and that, and on and on and on it goes. Whew! Thanks for telling about ‘oops dropped one!’
Did some scanning of Haight-Ashbury Newspaper of Oct 1978 & some photos of outside Tasking Flakers. Ad for store on back page.
Put them on flickr at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dave-ferro/albums/72157718749443086/
Hope you like them
Wow, those pix brought back memories. And it was fun to see the (absolutely terrible and unreadable) advert in the newspaper!
Phil was, in my opinion, not very good at layout stuff, but he was brilliant in many other ways. I took over the Thumbtack Bugle idea from him — after negotiating his agreement — changed his Thumbtack Bugle graphics and it took off, whereas he had struggled when he tried it initially.
And the story about how he got Bud to let him sell ice cream … that was Phil all over.
Thanks for the pix and the memories!
— Arthur (was formerly Richard French back in those days)
Going to post larger photos of Raskin Flakkers (I see autocorrect changed spelling last post). That is a contact print; larger photo lets you see inside at what was on walls & ceiling. Wish I had gotten a photo of the hanging flavor list & inside. All photos should be enabled to be enlarged and downloaded. Hard to do on phone.
Thank you so much!
There are more about SF/Bay Area you might be interested in. Just click on Albums in the upper part & all will be displayed. I’m still getting used to using flickr even years later.
The Haight is under San Francisco; lived on Ashbury & 3 other places before moving to Marin mid 76, where there were 7 moves.
Lately scanning 68-69 issues of EYE magazine, one of which had article about Laura Nyro & also pics/slides of Road Hog with Robert Hunter & Rodney Albin- didn’t realize it was Hunter all this time. My friend went to college with the drummer. Later, 2 guys in Melton’s band were housemates in Sausalito – they had a tendency to not pay rent.
Following a site about Road Hog, no reply yet:
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dpbRCk316cc/WdgIekGTPTI/AAAAAAAAFUs/Hjy6MnGZEWQEtt3VLDQopD1ceDnUop5hwCLcBGAs/s1600/Roadhog%2BGreen%2BEarth%2B19760506.jpg
Hey, Dave Ferro,
Thanks so much for your contribution to keeping a part of our history alive!
Nice work!
— Arthur/Richard, the Bloggard
I posted on a FB page about my favorite ice cream as a child, noting that we would get it at an ice cream shop on Hayes a few doors down from Sacred Ground Café. I couldn’t remember the name of the shop, but thanks to a contributor who posted the link to flickr images, I now know this was the spot. We went there often in the mid 70s. My favorite flavor? Butter brickle. Can’t find it anywhere today. But someone else posted a recipe, and I may try it, but also forwarded it to Mitchell’s in case they’re willing to give it a go. From one SF-based business to another. Fingers crossed!
Outstanding!
Thank you, Chloe Jager!
Hi Bloggard (RF? AC (or AK)? I remember you fondly, and thank you for your promotional help in the early days of what has passed for my career.
I was so jealous of your meeting with the great British Blues Man MJ, and still remember (word for word, or close) your exchange with him.
After hearing which I was less jealous!
You were a nice man then, and I am sure have continued thusly…
Best regards and wishes,
David Harp
daveharp(at)sover.net
Yeah! I remember when you and I talked about it. You scolded that I hadn’t told him that I had a buddy that could teach him to play blues harp better. I apologized for a great opportunity lost. Just think of how the Stones could have become a great blues-harp band. Oh, well. Bummer.
🙂
— Arthur/Richard
PS: I always wondered how things were going with you when I ran into you by accident at the NAMM show (National Association of Music Manufacturers) in Anaheim that time. I was touting the Megatar instrument I was about to manufacture, and you were on the way to a meeting about expanding your music-book publishing. Always wondered how your meeting turned out.
P.S. Considering your photo on this site, Have you:
Discovered some sort of anti-aging formula?
Sold your soul to some high ranking demon?
Work assiduously at it?
Please advise…David
Hi, David, so great to hear from you.
Arthur Cronos (aka Richard French) here. And my photo in the right column is about 15+ years old. I started this blog somewhere around 2003, and now here it is 2020.
I’m actually in better shape than back then. (Combo of intermittent fasting, several full-day fasts during the month, low carb eating, and 3 short bouts of exercise daily: X3 Bar heavy-duty stretchy bands, quick hill sprints around the block, and a little bit of kettlebell swinging midafternoon.)
How are things a-going with you. I still owe you such a debt of gratitude. As you’ll recall, you taught me to play blues harp, which led to more adventurous musical adventures, synths, manufacturing my own unique guitars, four method books; and in your class I met my wife of that time, Lori Ingram, because when she walked into your class, I said “Wow you smell great!”) It was the beginning of another great adventure.
I remember when I told you that you needed a teaching assistant. You said you didn’t. I insisted, pointing out that a person could meet girls in your class, and so then you let me be your teaching assistant, and I didn’t teach anything at all, but I did find an adventure. Ah! Those days back at Chickens That Sing Music, on Haight Street!
— Arthur/Richard
Hi Arthur/Richard.
Just thinking of you. Hope you are doing well in these uncertain times. I will always appreciate that The Thumbtack Bugle helped me get students for my first harmonica classes. Seems like a long time ago… (Fall, 1976)
Still living with Rita in Vermont. No kids at home, “just” pets.
Older daughter part of a Harvard/MIT Think Tank in Cambridge, Mass; younger one halfway through Biochem grad school and downhill ski EMT in Boulder, CO…
I was doing workshops ’til COVID — as much as I love my Vermont home, I do miss the stimulation of visiting, if not living in, big cities…
Best always, DH
Damn good to hear from you, especially as I was thinking about you recently, wondering how things are. Glad to hear you and Rita are chugging along. You’re a good man, Dave.
Of course, I remember you (and, I think, Senor Frog) back near the doc’s office parking lot, back in the day. And your huge record collection of blues harp masters.
I also miss the city, and the life there, but I also like the quieter and calmer life here in this small town on the side of Mount Shasta (see it out my kitchen window), and have no plans to move back to a big city. I get facebook pix all the time from the Bagdad by the Bay group, and the pix make me miss this place and that time, but … things move on. 🙂
I see Instant Blues Harmonica is still on Amazon, and hope your empire is still keeping you interested. As you perhaps know, when I was manufacturing the Megatar bass/guitar instruments, I also wrote some method books, and in so doing learned a lot of musical theory, how to play basslines, read music, compose, improvise, but I play very little these days, being caught up in other things.
Wonderful to hear from you. Tried to call a number listed for Musical I Press, but it rang without answer. (May be old info.)
You’ve reminded me to update my contact info here on Bloggard, as I’m no longer in Medford.
All the best,
–Arthur
P.S. If you ever want to be in touch (I check Bloggard approximately bi-annually) shoot me an email at daveharp(at)sover.net…
I scooped at RF for a weekend in November 1980! Filled in for a friend who had to leave town for a couple days. I was about to turn 19, living in Brisbane after cycling across country. I remember it being non stop busy for much of the day and getting stoned w coworkers after closing and cleaning up. Of course I never forgot that name and found this blog tonight while visiting SF for the final Dead & Co. show. Fun to read the posts! Great ice cream
Yep. Thanks for the note. Rock on!
Used to go to school at USF, just up the hill from Raskin Flakkers. My favorite was the banana walnut (precursor to B&J’s Chunky Monkey, but better!). Once, while heading back to my dorm with a double scoop of this delectable treat, one of USF basketball greats expressed an admiration, mixed with desire, for my cone, so I gave it to him (it was Bill Cartwright).