Maraline Mazzetti Olson is no stranger to publicity. Her Sebastopol ice cream parlor, Screamin’ Mimi’s, has been highlighted in USA Today, Food & Wine magazine and other national outlets. But when Washington Post reporter Hannah Sampson called to tell Olson she wanted to include the shop among the top U.S. ice cream destinations to build a vacation around, the recognition felt especially personal.
Sampson told Olson that ice cream expert Malcolm Stogo had recommended Screamin’ Mimi’s for the story. Stogo is best known for inventing the popular Cookies & Cream flavor in 1978 and has consulted for major brands, including Häagen-Dazs. In 1995, he founded Ice Cream University, based in New Jersey.
Olson met Stogo more than 30 years ago.
“He has been a mentor of mine for a long time and he just has a passion for ice cream and identified the same passion in me,” Olson said. “So it’s a pretty big honor to be recommended by Malcolm Stogo.”
An ice cream passion
Olson’s passion for making ice cream grew out of longing and necessity.
In New York’s Hudson Valley, where she grew up, ice cream parlors were a fixture in every town. But after moving to Sonoma County with her husband, Kurt, 34 years ago, she noticed a lack of locally owned ice cream shops.
“There was a Baskin-Robbins, (but) there were no homemade-ice cream parlors anywhere,” she said. “I couldn’t believe that an area so focused on food didn’t care about the quality of the ice cream it was eating.”
So Olson began making ice cream at home. For years, she had been thinking about a particular flavor inspired by a coffee sundae topped with hot fudge and cookies that she tried as a kid. The dessert made her appreciate coffee ice cream — “if it had enough chocolate in it.”
That inspiration became Mimi’s Mud, the shop’s signature flavor: espresso ice cream blended with homemade fudge, chocolate chips and Oreo pieces.
“The combination was exactly what I was hoping for.”
Recognizing that she had something special, Olson and her husband opened Screamin’ Mimi’s in Sebastopol in October 1995. The shop celebrated its 30th anniversary last year.
Olson describes the business as “very mom-and-pop,” with her husband and their son Carter, a Culinary Institute of America graduate, helping run the shop.
Screaming for Mimi’s
The unassuming ice cream parlor has earned praise locally and nationally for years. It is so consistently busy that Olson has hardly noticed a change in business since The Washington Post article appeared, aside from people reaching out to congratulate her.
“This is our super busy season anyway,” she said of summer. “We are so fortunate in that we have a really healthy business as it is.”
Mimi’s Mud remains the shop’s most popular flavor, and Olson credits it with helping distinguish Screamin’ Mimi’s from other ice cream shops. In the early years, the shop once sold out of it, prompting one “particularly obsessed customer” to stand on the counter and scream at children who couldn’t have the coveted flavor.
“So I don’t ever let that happen,” Olson said. “We never run out of Mimi’s Mud.”
Other popular flavors, include olive oil, lavender and Bee’s Knees, made with lavender ice cream and chocolate honeycomb. The lavender flavors are highly seasonal, available only when Olson can pick fresh lavender grown in Sebastopol.
Local love
Using local ingredients and supporting local farmers is important to Olson.
She sources peaches from Healdsburg’s Dry Creek Peach and from a former employee’s Geyserville farm. The strawberries and watermelon come from the L&N Produce Stand in Sebastopol, while raspberries are picked at Boring Farm, also in Sebastopol. More recently, she bought some “beautiful” Crane melons from Healdsburg’s Tookey Farms.
Olson’s commitment to the community extends beyond produce. For the past 27 years, Screamin’ Mimi’s has participated in Vitalant blood drives, donating a pint of ice cream for every pint of blood donated. The shop hosts one of the largest blood drives in the county, most recently held at Brook Haven Middle School in Sebastopol.
“It means a lot to me to be that active in the community,” Olson said. She and her husband also focus on supporting education and raising what she called “much-needed” funds. “We really love to support public schools … but we generally donate to anybody who asks.”
That commitment to young people and education extends to the shop’s employees, many of whom start as teenagers.
“I am super proud of the ice cream we make and the business that my husband and I and our boys have built,” she said. “But it could not be done without the amazing people who have worked for me over the years and are still currently here.”
Worth the trip
Screamin’ Mimi’s scoops 16 ice cream flavors, along with eight dairy-free options and sorbets. Vanilla, strawberry, chocolate chip cookie dough, Deep Dark Secret, Cookie Break and Galaxy are available daily. The remaining flavors change with the seasons and the availability of fresh ingredients.
Two seasonal favorites are hazelnut fudge, which Olson calls “superior to any hazelnut I’ve ever had in Italy,” and spumoni, available only in December. It combines three flavors: pistachio, chocolate with cherries and Grand Marnier with candied orange bits.
In addition to the national attention, Screamin’ Mimi’s regularly appears on Sonoma Magazine’s list of the best ice creams in Sonoma County and has frequently been named “Best Ice Cream” in The Press Democrat’s “Best of Sonoma County Readers’ Choice Awards.”
“I don’t take for granted one day that people are gonna want my ice cream over anybody else’s ice cream,” Olson said. “So I make sure that my product tastes that good that you wouldn’t want to go anywhere else.”
Screamin’ Mimi’s, 6902 Sebastopol Ave., Sebastopol, 707-823-5902, screaminmimisicecream.com
