NATIONAL CITY (KGTV) \u2014 A trip to Niederfrank\u2019s Ice Cream in National City comes with an unusual twist. Customers order from a desk at the front door instead of walking inside the shop.<\/p>\n
Co-owner Patti Finnegan said the business started serving customers through the doors during the COVID-19 pandemic and continued the practice because staffing challenges made it difficult to keep the inside running. Patti said rising costs have made those challenges even harder.<\/p>\n
“I don’t skimp on anything,” Finnegan said. “All of my imported fruits, all my tropicals are imported … All my chocolates are imported … there’s a tariff line: $500.” <\/p>\n
The rising costs extend beyond ingredients.<\/p>\n
Patti said ice cream buckets are becoming more expensive as well. She said the buckets are petroleum-based and made in Canada, creating additional cost pressures tied to oil prices and tariffs.<\/p>\n
“Every time I turn around. I was literally less than two years ago at just under $5, now I’m a hair under $12,” Finnegan said. <\/p>\n
Despite the financial strain, Patti said she is not considering selling the business at this time, staffing it full time with her co-owner and selling other buckets on the side. <\/p>\n
For now, customers can continue enjoying their ice cream outside at the shop\u2019s outdoor tables while the business navigates the higher costs.<\/p>\n
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NATIONAL CITY (KGTV) \u2014 A trip to Niederfrank\u2019s Ice Cream in National City comes with an unusual twist.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[208,1085,89590,30604,5119,190641,16619,1929,74,76,75,3429],"class_list":["post-488200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-cost-of-living","tag-covid","tag-historic","tag-ice-cream","tag-national-city","tag-niederfranks","tag-oils","tag-price","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-tariffs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}