Over the past eight years, San Diego-based An’s Gelato company has made quite a name for itself, or make that “names.”
Each of its scoop shops have bespoke names, designs and gelato flavors inspired by the mostly older buildings that they occupy, like An’s Dry Cleaning in Normal Heights and An’s Athletic Field Services at Petco Park. And over the past two years, the An’s name has also become nationally famous, after being named the No. 1 ice cream shop in America in a USA Today poll in both 2024 and 2025.
Now, the company is preparing to open its next shop in its most unique and notable location ever: The historic Top Gun House in Oceanside. The 1888 Queen Ann cottage on the grounds of the Mission Pacific Beach Resort near Oceanside Pier got its nickname after being used as a shooting location in “Top Gun,” the 1986 Tom Cruise film about San Diego’s former TOPGUN Navy fighter pilots school.
The newest An’s company shop — set to open in late spring or early summer at 250 N. Pacific St. — will be named An’s Gate D6.
The exterior of the cottage will remain the same. But inside, it will resemble a 1970s-’80s-era U.S. airport, where customers will walk through a “security” gate and queue up in stanchion lines to place their order at a flight check-in desk.
Customers will choose from “carry on” or “checked bag” serving sizes and select flavors named after flight destinations, like “Milan” for a pistachio-based gelato. The “Top Gun” film will be celebrated with some memorabilia and a “military flights” departures gate. There will also be a retail wall selling An’s-branded travel neck pillows and possibly a retro “departures lounge” in the back.
On Friday, two of the company’s co-founders, President and CEO Kris Warren and Chief Marketing Officer Travis Bailey, offered the U-T an exclusive tour of their future store, which was formerly occupied by High Pie, a fried hand-pie shop that closed a few months ago.
Warren and Bailey said the building’s historic exterior will remain untouched except for some discreet signs, but they hope customers are surprised and delighted when they step inside the nearly 1,000-square-foot building.
“This house is over 100 years old and we want to respect that, but we also want to juxtapose the outside with what’s inside in a way that people won’t expect,” Bailey said. “I like it when people walk past our shops and they do a double-take. You can see them figuring it out.”
An’s Gate D6 — so titled because it’s the company’s sixth business and “D” is the first letter of company Chief Gelato Officer David Aguilera’s name — will follow the company tradition of serving seven unique, small-batch-made flavors that will change every two to three weeks, as well as one lighter “palate cleanser” flavor (like a lime-and-ginger sorbetto).
Because there’s more kitchen space inside the Top Gun House, Warren said they are considering adding coffee drinks to the menu at An’s Gate D6, which would allow them to sell for the first time an affogato dessert (gelato with a shot of fresh-brewed espresso).
An’s has a long tradition of collaborating with local restaurant chefs and artisan foodmakers on new flavors. On Friday, Warren and Bailey spent the afternoon on a tasting tour of Oceanside restaurants.
“Oceanside has become a really exciting and elevated food destination, with deep local roots and some great newer experiences,” Bailey said. “That culinary energy and the quintessential Southern California feel of Oceanside is what drew us here. We’re excited and humbled to become part of such an iconic landmark, and to bring a fresh An’s perspective to the space.”
An’s Gelato co-founders Travis Bailey, left, and Kris Warren in front of the famous Top Gun House on the grounds of the Mission Pacific Beach Resort in Oceanside on Friday, March 13. In May, San Diego-based An’s will open its latest bespoke gelato shop inside the historic 1888 Folk Victorian cottage at 250 N. Pacific St. near the Oceanside Pier. (John Gastaldo / For the Union-Tribune)
A friends-focused enterprise
Warren said he gets an email almost every week from someone wanting to invest in the company or help them franchise their business. But the four partners and longtime friends who own An’s Gelato aren’t interested. Their goal is to keep An’s private and grow the business gradually.
Warren said they were originally scouting locations in Encinitas for their first North County shop, but then they were contacted by the operators of the Mission Pacific Beach Resort, who encouraged them submit a lease application for the Top Gun House.
Because An’s is such a hands-on operation, the partners say they only want to open shops in cities that they love and enjoy visiting, and they said looking out at the Pacific Ocean from the Top Gun House’s front porch is pretty hard to beat.
Warren said he and his partners have talked about opening a couple more shops in the San Diego area, and then expanding to other “hot spot” cities in the U.S., like Portland, Ore., Chicago and New York City. Then, many years down the road, they may expand abroad.
The roots of An’s Gelato were planted 27 years ago, when Warren and Bailey met as 14-year-old freshmen at their high school in Redding and became best friends for life. They both earned bachelor’s degrees at UC San Diego, then went their separate ways professionally.
Bailey went to law school at Chapman University, where he met classmate Jimmy Blalock, who would later become An’s chief financial officer. And Warren went into the hospitality industry and moved to Spain. That’s where he met Aguilera, an international gelato consultant who had opened and managed scoop shops all over Europe.
After Warren moved back to San Diego, he started talking to Aguilera in 2015 about starting a gelato store here, because the balmy local weather would ensure consistent sales year-round. Bailey, an attorney who lives in Ventura County, and Blalock, an attorney in Orange County, decided to sign on to the business in 2016.
The quartet opened their first shop in June 2018 on Adams Avenue in Normal Heights. They named it An’s Dry Cleaning, after the vacant shop’s former tenant, An’s, a decades-old Martinizing and tailoring business. Its initial flavors, all named after fabrics, included Gabardine (banana and dark chocolate) and Canvas (olive oil and rosemary).
The unusual naming and theming concept the partners devised for their original store — to spark curiosity from passers-by, as well as appreciation from the community that a local landmark was being remembered — became the company trademark.
In 2022, they opened An’s Hatmakers in Del Mar Plaza, which is named for the tradition of wearing fancy headwear to the nearby Del Mar Racetrack.
In 2024, they opened An’s Athletic Field Services at Petco Park, with gelato flavors inspired by the work required to keep the ballfield game-ready, including Clay (Nutella and brownies), Silt (cookie butter and Biscoff cookies) and Sand (fig and vanilla).
Then last year, they opened An’s Electronics Repair in a vacant Bacon Street retail space in Ocean Beach that formerly housed a phone repair shop, and before that a computer repair store. The shop’s flavors have included Motherboard and Bluetooth. The partners also own a fifth business, An’s Catering Services.
An’s Dry Cleaning had just 12 employees when it opened in June 2018. Today, the company employs up to 150 workers during the peak summer months. On average, they sell about 900 liters of gelato a week.
An’s Gelato co-founders Kris Warren, left, and Travis Bailey on the steps of the famous Top Gun House on the grounds of the Mission Pacific Beach Resort in Oceanside on Friday, March 13. In May, San Diego-based An’s will open its latest bespoke gelato shop inside the historic 1888 Folk Victorian cottage at 250 N. Pacific St. near the Oceanside Pier. (John Gastaldo / For the Union-Tribune)
Nation’s No. 1
Because each An’s shop has its own unique and ever-changing lineup of gelato and sorbetto flavors, Aguilera is constantly innovating to keep the menus fresh. Warren said he believes Aguilera has devised more than 600 flavors since 2018.
Asked to name their personal picks, Warren said his favorite is Merino, made with saffron and chocolate-covered honeycomb brittle. Bailey has two favorites: Canvas, the olive oil-rosemary flavor, and a just-released flavor inspired by English sticky toffee pudding.
Thanks to the vast variety of flavors it offers, and its small-batch/high-end ingredients ethos, An’s caught the eye of USA Today in 2023, when it named An’s Dry Cleaning No. 3 on its top 10 list of the best independent ice cream shop in the U.S. The following year, An’s rose to the No. 1 spot, and it maintained that leadership position in 2025. Competition for the 2026 crown will begin later this spring.
Warren said the national acclaim has been great for the company’s business.
“It opened a lot of doors,” Warren said. “In the early days, it took a lot of convincing for people to give us a shot. We had to do a lot of tap dancing.”
Bailey agrees that the award made a big difference in sales, though he said it also came with its own risks. But he and his partners welcome the challenge.
“We had to raise our game,” Bailey said. “People come in and expect a lot from us and we have to deliver it.”