Downtown SLO ice cream shop was rarely open after COVID. Now it’s back

An ice cream shop serving scoops and cookie sandwiches has fully reopened in downtown San Luis Obispo.

For years, Batch Old Fashioned Ice Cream on Broad Street has more often than not seemed closed for business, with uncertain hours and rarely open doors.

That changed this summer, however, after owner James Whitaker decided it was time to dedicate effort to fully reopening the popular shop.

“Ice cream is happy,” Whitaker told The Tribune in July. “People are happy when they have ice cream, and we didn’t really want to let it go.” Whitaker did not respond to additional requests for comment on the reopening as of Thursday.

Now the shop is once again fully up and running — though its hours are still subject to some change.

What happened to Batch in downtown SLO?

Batch first opened downtown in 2012.

Its hours began shifting during COVID-19, where it would be open only over weekends or holidays. The sporadic hours caused some online to question what was happening with the shop, especially as its social media and website continued to claim the business was “reopening soon.”

With Whitaker also owning Kreuzberg California and Kraken Coffee, the ice cream shop’s full reopening was delayed, however, until Whitaker decided enough was enough.

“We just decided that it’s been enough time, and we need to put effort into it to get it open,” he said. “Nothing really changed, other than the idea that we decided it’s time to finally get it open.”

He added: “People have been loving Batch open again.”

Batch serves up ice cream flavors like mint chip, vanilla and Oreo cookie, but its specialty lies in its ice cream cookie sandwiches. Fresh-baked cookies of choice stack up against a heaping scoop of ice cream to craft a sweet treat.

The shop’s namesake follows the small batches of ice cream made in the shop, made of 16% milk fat. The cookies are also made in-house the “old-fashioned way,” Whitaker said.

“We make our cookies fresh every day; real ingredients, real butter, real milk, real eggs, kind of the old-fashioned way, the way your grandmother would have made her cookies,” he said. “Everything is made in small batches so that it’s super fresh. It kind of has that old-timey ice cream vibe.”

The ice cream sandwich shop currently has somewhat fluid hours, with a beige sign outside its pink-painted door reading:

“Hours are subject to change based on volume of customers, scheduling conflicts, and weather.”

For more information

Batch Old Fashioned Ice Cream at 1108 Broad St. is currently open Wednesday to Friday from 3:30 to 9:30 p.m., Saturday from 1:30 to 9:30 p.m. and Sunday from 1:30 to 9:15 p.m.

For more information, visit its website or call 805-592-2250.