It aspired to be the next Ben & Jerry’s. Now a beloved ice cream company has crumbled | Opinion
To the Village of Arroyo Grande — a small community in San Luis Obispo County — Doc Burnstein’s was always more than an ice cream shop.
Starting with its forerunner — Burnardo’z — it’s been an institution on par with the historic Swinging Bridge, Bill O’Connor’s saloon and the flock of chickens that roams the Village parking lot.
But now there’s a “closed indefinitely” sign on the door of the original Doc’s, and accusations of malfeasance have been directed at those in charge of the business, including a Sacramento-based company that got involved in financing the expansion of a brand that aspired to be as big as Ben & Jerry’s.
All this has hit locals hard.
“It really is a shock,” said Arroyo Grande Mayor Caren Ray Russom. “I’ve got 40 years of memories, going back to Burnardo’z. ... It’s hard to imagine the Village without our hometown ice cream store.”
It’s a sad end to a success story that started back in 1976, when two classroom teachers — Chuck Burns and Art Cardoza — decided to pack it in and open an ice cream shop.
They called it Burnardo’z — a mashup of their two names — and from the start, it was a hit.
There were lines outside the door of the shop, then located inside the old bank building that now houses Lightning Joe’s Guitar Heaven.
Sunset magazine and other travel publications wrote glowing reviews.
People came to the Village just for the cones, marveling not only at the flavors, but also at the size of the scoops.
It was akin to the Krispy Kreme doughnut — a treat that reached cult status and helped bring business to the Village.
Is there any wonder, then, that allegations of wrongdoing — which include scamming shareholders and shorting employees —seem like a betrayal?
An ice cream ‘lab’
Greg Steinberger took over the business in 2003, rechristening it Doc Burnstein’s Ice Cream Lab — keeping the “Burns” in honor of Chuck.
By that time, the shop had moved to its new location across the street.
It was swankier, with wooden booths where you could sit and enjoy your treat and marvel at the model train overhead, chugging its way around the store.
The addition of the “lab” introduced a new element: shows that allowed an audience to pick the name and ingredients of a new flavor, which then became the featured ice cream of the week.
Doc Burnstein’s was part of the community. It was where many teenagers got their first jobs, Little Leaguers gathered to celebrate — or commiserate — after a game, and locals went to try out flavors like Motor Oil, Bubble Gum and Merlot Raspberry Truffle.
Doc’s was also a generous community member. It donated to a scholarship fund, supported fundraisers, and sponsored monthly blood banks where donors got certificates for free ice cream.
When the company announced it was going public — and put up a giant thermometer in the widow to chart the number of shares sold — investing seemed like a neighborly thing to do.
Steinberger had high hopes for the brand: “What Ben and Jerry’s is to people, that’s what I want Doc’s to be in the future,” he once said.
Now he’s looking at a company in shambles: “Today we are losing more than our financial investments in this once iconic business,” he wrote in an email to investors. “We also lose being part of a business that was a source of pride in our community.”
What happened?
Locals have been left to speculate about what went wrong.
Some wonder if it tried to grow too fast. After the business went public, it expanded, adding ice cream parlors in downtown San Luis Obispo and Santa Maria and shipping ice cream to several other locations. There were plans for even more growth — including an ice cream shop in Sacramento that never got off the ground.
Steinberger, who is no longer with the company, says there’s more to it.
In a December interview with Tribune reporter Kaytlyn Leslie, he alleged Doc Burnstein’s had been mismanaged to the point of bankruptcy in recent years. The business and its parent company, Sacramento-based Aulon Arch, are under investigation for possible corporate malfeasance., according to Steinberger, who alleges that shareholders were misled about the value of the shares.
“I’ve got 550 (shareholders) who put their trust in me, and I’d like them to know the story — the real story,” he told Leslie.
Management now in charge of Doc Burnstein’s declined to comment, but in a letter to shareholders obtained by The Tribune, it blamed the business failure on health and personal issues involving top managers.
“This lack of local (and healthy) authority to drive things forward has been a severe challenge for several months,” the letter claimed. “As a result, most likely, Doc’s will close in the next few days unless someone local is willing to step in and sort things out and complete the profitable restructuring.”
Given the circumstances, it’s hard to imagine anyone coming to the rescue of an outfit that’s been accused of financial wrongdoing.
While we can hope that a deal will be reached to reopen the Doc’s location in Arroyo Grande, next steps are anyone’s guess.
The “closed indefinitely” sign will likely remain up for the foreseeable future — creating a void in the Village that will be hard to fill and disappointing untold numbers of loyal customers.
“Sad,” one wrote on The Tribune’s Facebook page. “I never got to go one last time.”
This story was originally published February 18, 2023 at 7:00 AM with the headline "It aspired to be the next Ben & Jerry’s. Now a beloved ice cream company has crumbled | Opinion."
