This Oakland-born ice cream shop inspired me today | 004
Dipen shares more about how he wants his ice cream shop, Miharu, to strengthen the East Bay community
"This might be my new favorite ice cream shop in the Bay," I proclaim to Dipen, whom I didn't yet know. I end up getting a split single with the Banana with Dulce de Leche and Shrikhand. My friend Adele gets the Chai. And we walked out of the shop, absolutely blown away by how delicious it was.
This memory from early December 2023 was my first experience at Miharu, and I’ve wanted to learn more about its story ever since.
In today's interview, we'll be kicking it with Dipen Pattni, Co-Owner of Miharu Ice Cream in Oakland, CA!
Table of Contents
Miharu's origin and how they developed their unique flavors
What community means to Dipen
The specific ways Miharu is building its business with community in mind
Where Miharu sources their ingredients and the partnerships/collaborations they've created
What help does Miharu need from the audience and the community to continue doing what it's doing?
Closing reflections
Derrick: Tell me more about your role, Jessica's role, and what the team currently looks like at Miharu.
Dipen: I handle all the front-of-house stuff, including hiring, training, and scooping. Jessica's in charge of the back-of-house, making all the ice cream and cookies. We have a team of four scoopers: Noah, Scott, Marco, and Cheyenne.
Derrick: How did Miharu come to be?
Dipen: Both Jessica and I started making ice cream as a hobby; this dates back to when I was still in Tanzania, where I'm originally from. Once I moved out to the Bay Area, I started working for another ice cream company and enjoyed it for the five years I was there. I started as a scooper, making just above minimum wage; then I became a shift lead, and then I wanted to learn how to make the actual ice cream, so I kept pushing them to let me learn. Eventually, a position like this opened up, and I interviewed and got the job.
This company also happened to be where I met Jessica, my partner. She was a pastry lead, organizing everything and ensuring things ran efficiently. Once she left the company, we started dating.
Over time, we realized we wanted to do our own thing, mainly because we wanted to experiment with different flavors. Given our cultural upbringings, we've always wanted to create international flavors.
So, I quit working at the company in February 2020 but kept working part-time somewhere else until COVID-19 caused a layoff. At this point, nothing else happened besides playing Call of Duty for a few months with my friends. I had no choice but to research what we needed to do to open the business. We focused on the name, logo, and random stuff like permits from March to October. We opened in October 2020 at the Cloud Kitchen on East 12th Street in East Oakland. We could've bought or leased a food truck, but opening at the Cloud Kitchen and on the food delivery apps made the most sense because nobody was out, and we didn't want to wait up to a year to see if this business could gain traction. We saw a few flavors stick with our customers a few months in, and these flavors are still on the menu today.
Derrick: I want to dive into the flavors a bit and let the audience know that I love Miharu because of the Asian-themed flavors. Y'all have become one of my favorite ice cream places in the Bay Area. I love Fenton's because they're a classic and the OG, but Miharu is right there now. Obviously, Fenton's doesn't offer Asian-themed flavors, so it's dope that you're serving a different market.
In L.A., I love this place called Wanderlust, and in San Diego, there's a place called Stella Jean’s, both of which serve similar themed flavors. These places and Miharu are some of my tops because I'm biased (being an Asian-American), and I love my Asian-themed ice cream flavors. I'm glad that you're here!
Why did you create all of the flavors that you offer?
Dipen: At the core of it, ice cream is the perfect blank canvas. You can always make a flavor savory, sweet, or something in between. For example, I've always wanted to create my own version of dark milk chocolate; ours is a nice balance of sweet, milky chocolate, but it's not all sugar. It's got a fruitier and darker element to it, which I think is the best of both worlds. When I was growing up, chocolate used to taste like chocolate. Now, it tastes like something else. I want a milky milk chocolate, but it's not just cocoa powder.
Then we have our lychee with raspberry rose, which is very popular. It's influenced by other places that we've gone to. Growing up, I ate rambutans, not lychee, which has a similar flavor. The raspberry part we'd had taken influence from this French baker, who put raspberry rose together with the lychee, and they tasted so good together. We knew we had to create the flavor here.
Derrick: Tell me a little about some of the Indian-inspired flavors, too.
Dipen: That's easier for me because I'm Indian, and that's all inspiration from home. Our most popular Indian ice cream flavor is Shrikhand, a dessert from where my family is from in India, Gujarat, and other nearby states. It's yogurt infused with saffron and cardamom, with almonds and pistachios mixed in. This combination makes it sweet and tangy and has a nice crunch. It's usually eaten for celebrations, as well as a daytime dessert. We've always had it during lunchtime, especially when you're in a warmer place or during a warmer time of the year; it's perfectly cooling. It's not super heavy where you feel like, "Oh man, I just ate some huge dessert."
Derrick: How many flavors do you have right now?
Dipen: We're at 16. Hopefully, we'll add one more soon, but Jessica's not ready to unveil that yet. One thing we've learned about flavors created here versus at the Cloud Kitchen is that the only honest feedback we received from the Cloud Kitchen is how many people were getting certain ice cream flavors. We based demand on whether we ran out of a flavor in a given week. Over here, people tell you straight to your face, or you can see their reactions.
Another thing we've had to consider now is to get that balance right of savory flavors, sour flavors, and then sweet flavors. We must strike a balance between creating our signature flavors and ensuring that when somebody is stepping into the shop, they get something they would like. It's not going to happen every time, of course, because we don't want to serve the same stuff that a Baskin Robbins would, but we want there to be a flavor a customer is familiar with.
Derrick: I love the range of flavors here: sour, savory, and sweet. It seems like there is a constant process of experimentation and iteration. I also love how you don't limit the number of flavors a customer can try, which many ice cream places do.
Dipen: Yeah, definitely. We also ensure our team members know everything about each flavor, how the ice cream is made, etc., so they can accurately describe it to customers.
Derrick: What does community mean to you? Why is community important to you?
Dipen: It means a lot to me. It's something I've learned from where I used to work. It was present even when we were at the Cloud Kitchen. You see similar names pop up on order tickets. You realize these people are super close to us in proximity, and they want to support us. Many would stop ordering on DoorDash and just come in to pick up their ice cream directly.
These were my first real face-to-face interactions with them as the owner of Miharu. Oaklanders want to support a small local business, especially if they like you, and obviously, we're doing our best to be welcoming to everybody. We're trying to make flavors that can bring them back to their childhood. Or if somebody's never had Pandan, we try to introduce it to them through the ice cream, and they're usually pleasantly surprised.
We're still on our journey to becoming more involved in the community and learning how to do that.
Derrick: How does your cultural upbringing show up in Miharu today?
Dipen: I grew up in Tanzania, and there's a decent-sized Indian population- not huge, but still an extreme minority. It's about 1% or less; then you break that down even more.
My community had an international vibe, so I was always open to meeting people, listening, or trying new food or cuisine at lunch. My friends and I would mix and match different snacks. Food is the easiest way to learn about somebody's culture. This experience taught me about people, which has become our approach at Miharu.
We want to try different flavors and have new experiences for ourselves and the customers. We try to see what flavors customers wish to see created, inspired by their childhood, or just a random idea. I always say with a little asterisk, it won't be immediately, but we want to try it. We're always open to ideas because that's one of the funnest parts of making ice cream. You're always experimenting, whether good or bad; you always learn something, or you take part of it, and you can morph it into something else.
Derrick: And where did the name Miharu originate?
Dipen: It's a Japanese name that means beautiful spring. Also, it's Jessica's middle name. We had different name ideas, but this one stuck, so we just went with it.
Also, my cousin designed our logo, fonts, colors, and menu.
Derrick: What specific ways are you building Miharu with community in mind?
Dipen: With hiring, we want to hire people who are as close to the shop as possible; that doesn't mean we're looking at people's addresses. But I used to have super long 30-mile commutes — they were such a pain. So we try to hire people who live around here. It's also nice when a team member talks to a customer they know and says, "Hey, how's it going? I saw you were at the market today." Or, "Have you tried the new ramen place just around the corner?" These interactions, even subtle ones, help create a real sense of community. We want to grow this actively as time goes on.
Derrick: Everything you're saying has so much power because you're a local business that understands its role and impact in the community and continually builds a relationship with the community, creating growth that compounds. Miharu is empowering the Oakland economy and community.
Where do you source your ingredients?
Dipen: Jessica worked at the farmer's market for five or six years. Through this experience, she has developed many quality relationships with local/Central Valley farmers. We always use their produce for different flavors, especially the uglier fruit they don't sell. We'll buy it or use it because we're going to blend it up anyway, no matter how it looks.
We always try to incorporate this mentality into our ice cream. Currently, we get Cara cara navel oranges from Jessica's good friend. We collaborate with someone named Farmer Eric. He's always at the San Leandro Farmer's Market. We also get Yakimo sweet potatoes from Borba Family Farms. We also focus on organic produce and organic ingredients from the dairy. We use Straus Dairy, which is local. We use Signal Coffee, started in Alameda, for the coffee we put in our ice cream. I emailed them one day, "Hey, we want to make a coffee flavor. Do you sell big bags of coffee?" Everyone else I emailed for coffee was from slightly larger companies, and they never got back to me. But the owner of Signal, Brendan, emailed me immediately at 10 pm on a Saturday. Boom! I asked him when I could pick it up, and he said Monday. Then I just went over and met the owner, picked the beans up, and our partnership started from there.
Derrick: I love the speed at which local businesses can collaborate and partner. This helps to create such a strong local economy and community — the power of this can't be understated.
Dipen: Another example I want to shout out is a guy I know named Daryle, an Oakland-based baker who started a company called D’s Treats. He makes cakes, pies, and drinks, and we met at the Cloud Kitchen. We met one day and shared what we both do, and he told me he loves ice cream. I brought him to the back of our area, and we ate some of our ice cream. He enjoyed it and told me he wanted me to make custom flavors for him. We have a partnership now where we'll use his cakes in our ice cream, or he'll use our ice cream in his cakes. He has a similar outlook to us about trying different flavors and combinations. He has a wide range of things that match up with us. We need more collaborations, like, "You get my vision, I get your vision, let's make it happen."
Derrick: Are there any other examples of partnerships you've tapped into recently? Are you planning upcoming collaborations like that?
Dipen: One prime example is Soke, who's been helping us with our social media recently, specifically reels and videos. She's been a fan of our ice cream and kept coming to the shop and asking to help us in this area.
She also makes juices that she'll bring into the shop and does pop-ups a few times a week. At some point, we want to do an ice cream or sorbet flavor with her juices.
So we're hoping to do things like that. Now that we're on a bigger scale, it's challenging to do that all the time.
Derrick: What do you need help with from the community?
Dipen: The most significant area is just telling your family and friends. We're still new here and evolving in our journey to become part of the community and Oakland.
We were hidden for 2.5 years at the Cloud Kitchen but greatly appreciate our Day Ones. They saw us in this random building with zero signs and no name on the front.
Derrick: Your journey happened organically, with both of you working in ice cream and realizing that you wanted to try your flavors and do your own thing. You went from the Cloud Kitchen, testing the idea and seeing traction. Then, seeing enough success to justify having a storefront from there, you plug into the local Oakland community, making sure that you know what this place is about, how you can make an impact here, and also bring people into what you're doing to your hiring strategy and your ingredient strategy.
You have a compelling story. Thank you so much for what you're building and how you're building it. I'm more invested in what you're doing and want to continue seeing this place grow. I hope more of the audience now feels the same way, too.
Yes, absolutely. Let's make Oakland proud. Right now, given the landscape and everything you hear in the news, Oakland is always portrayed in a negative light. How about we find a way to highlight examples and stories like Miharu's to spread more light and positivity in Oakland? This place is still incredible.
Dipen: If you see the news, it's evident that Oakland can do things to help and change things around, but we're still here and trying to serve delicious ice cream. Oakland deserves to have delicious and interesting ice cream. We want to make good stuff and bring people to Oakland.
Derrick: I'm going to share the s*** out of this story, and we're going to run up all the numbers here, and we’re going to make sure that you have too much business from now on.
I appreciate you, your time, and trusting me with your story and allowing me to tell it. Now, can I tap into some of this ice cream?
Dipen: Yeah, let's see what Jessica's making.
If you’re looking for some dope Miharu content, check out this Instagram Reel of Dipen teaching us how to make a Banana Split!
Thanks again to Josh for helping with this episode!
The beginning of it all! Love seeing this come to life.