Swensen's

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Lamb Chop with almonds, Swensen's Singapore.

Swensen's is a global chain of ice cream restaurants that started in San Francisco.

[edit] History

The company was started in 1948 by Earle Swensen. Swensen opened his first shop on at Hyde and Union Streets, a corner site along the cable car tracks in Russian Hill in San Francisco at what had been a failed ice cream parlor.^[1] Although vanilla was his lifelong favorite, he developed more than 150 flavors, which he marketed under the motto "Good as Father Used to Make". Beyond ice cream and other chilled dessert products (such as sundaes and banana splits), Swensen's serves various types of food, including sandwiches and hamburgers.

Swensen sold the brand to new investors in the 1970s but retained exclusive rights in San Francisco and continued to operate his original store (which still exists today) until 1994, a year before his death at age 83. Under new management the company expanded to 400 stores, mostly franchise locations, by the 1980s. However, in the 1990s it contracted to half of that size before being acquired and expanding again, mostly in Asia. Today the company is owned by International Franchise Corp of Markham, Ontario, Canada, which bought the franchise business from CoolBrands in 2006. The chain now includes about 300 franchise outlets worldwide including locations in Asia, the Middle East, the United States and South America.