Last week I got a call from Trevor, the general manager here at Naia. He said he was offering me the chance to work at the wrap party for Cars, the new movie from Pixar and Disney that will be out this summer. If you know me, you know that I absolutely love cartoons and animation. Going to an event like this is something I would normally never have a chance of attending, so to have this sort of opportunity arise was incredible. I agreed to go, and after hanging up proceeded to squeal and jump up and down excitedly. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was!

The party was being held in an old airplane hangar, and was much bigger than I thought it would be - about 1700 attendees! We quickly set up and watched people arrive. It was great to see how excited the Pixar employees were about our gelato. Many said they had been to our Shattuck and Walnut Creek stores in the past. We were very popular all night, with long lines leading up to our cart, and ran out of nearly everything we brought in about 3 hours.

It was fun to see people come up for seconds and thirds (and sometimes fourths) of gelato, and to try each of the flavors we brought. We were right next to the dance floor, a prime location for people-watching. I had a great time watching people who were dressed to the nines dancing to 80s music all night. I remember seeing one guy wearing sparkly red platforms and a very long white trench coat - the shoes made him look about 7 feet tall, and I was amazed he didn’t trip.

I was exhausted by the end of the night but it was worth it. I had a great time. Thanks again to Trevor for letting me work. I’ve done catering in the past but never anything as entertaining as this was!

(Note: Shelby is a hard-working shift-leader at our Castro store.)

Nope, we’re not kidding.

Here’s the story. Two years ago it was nearing St Patrick’s Day and I had read a great recipe for a soup made with Guinness beer. We make a great gelato with champagne so why not try Guinness? It took a while to get the recipe right but everyone in the kitchen thought it tasted pretty good. My idea was to put it out for St Paddy’s Day just for fun. I mean, it’s beer gelato. We were just goofing around. Our guests thought differently. It sold out in an hour.

Like all of our gelato, it is the flavor that grabs you. Our Guinness gelato has a malt and caramel flavor and a slight roasted bitterness, just like a nice pint of Guinness. How do we make it? Well, we don’t use a bunch of crazy syrups or flavorings. We use Guinness. Just look at the picture.

One more thing. All of those cans went into the gelato. We didn’t drink any when we were making it. I swear.