Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Steven Johnston, manager of Sweet Retreat, prepares a carmel-praline waffle cone sundae.

Sweet Retreat is a haven for ice cream aficionados

By Suzanne Cristallo

Adults might feel like kids again when they try to get their mouths around a super single scoop of ice cream at Sweet Retreat in Los Gatos--a new ice cream store serving all the milkshake, soda and sundae creations one expects from a creamery, along with yogurt and fruit smoothies.

The $1.80 super scoop is up to 12 ounces of creamy stuff piled atop a flaky cone; it's a challenge to get it down before the heat of the day melts it away. For the fleet of mouth, the double scoop--a full 20 ounces--is $3.15. Compare that to a pint of ice cream, which is just 16 ounces.

"We're told we give twice as much for the price as our competition," says owner Gary Daniels, who with his wife, Yvonne, now has four stores in the 11-year-old chain. The Los Gatos store on Union Avenue near Safeway in the Downing Center opened in May. Since then, another has opened in the Pruneyard Shopping Center.

Daniels prides himself on giving the best of three things in his stores: price, portion and product. He serves Treat ice cream from San Jose and Bud's from San Francisco, each company excelling in particular flavors, he says. He was encouraged to expand beyond his original store when he observed his store packed with customers day after day while his competitor's staff stood nearly idle.

He is now in the process of setting up a national franchise based on his business principles. He will provide product, business training, location research and the company name for buyers, who will then own their own stores.

This entrepreneurial foray is a far cry from the direction Daniels, 48, first took when he accepted a scholarship in mathematics and physics from Yale University after his 1967 graduation from high school in San Jose. But after three years at Yale, he left for a year in the U.S. Air Force, marriage and fatherhood, then work as a field engineering specialist for Burroughs Corporation.

"I decided to retire from that into something fun," he recalls. The ice cream business was a happy choice.

Some fun must come from thinking up names for his creamy concoctions. There's The Early Bird Catches the Worm, a coffee smoothie; The Straw That Broke the Camel's Back, a strawberry and lemonade smoothie; and Throwing Caution to the Wind, a tropical fruit and yogurt mix.

The Belly Buster sundae, made with a half-gallon of ice cream, fits its descriptive moniker. For the person who can beat the record by eating it in less than seven minutes and 21 seconds, Raider football tickets might be the prize when the contest is announced.

Customers may create their own yogurt flavor mixes made possible by the special machine Daniels purchased from a Kansas City company that went out of business. It takes in plain yogurt and whatever fruits, nuts and condiments are chosen and squeezes out the mix. Daniels' personal favorite is yogurt with Oreo cookies, swiss mocha and a Skor bar.

New manager Steve Johnston, 22, can whip up anyone's fantasy and is always on the lookout for something new.

Johnston got his new job in part by "catching the dream," Daniels says. That is, he sees clearly the future Daniels envisions for Sweet Retreat: 2,000 new stores in the next seven to 10 years.

Sweet Retreat, 15545 Union Ave., Los Gatos. Open Sun.-Thu., noon-10 p.m., and Fri.-Sat., noon-11 p.m. 377-4884.

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