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Wednesday, November 5, 2025

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Best of the Bay 2024 Editors’ Pick: Humphry Slocombe’s Secret Breakfast

Influential as it is delicious, the iconic local flavor inspires knock-offs and even a 420 tribute.

48 Hills writers and editors are choosing their Best of the Bay Editors’ Picks for our 50th anniversary Best of the Bay edition. See more great profiles here, and stay tuned for our Best of the Bay 2024 Readers’ Poll results coming in September!

It’s been a banner sweet 16th year for Secret Breakfast, a combo of bourbon ice cream and corn flake cookies created by Jake Godby that he used to help launch his first Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream parlor in San Francisco’s Mission District in December 2008. 

In the years since it was first scooped on Harrison Street cones, Secret Breakfast has led to knockoffs, inspired-bys, and a general standardization of using corn flakes as a crucial sundae topping and overall dessert accent, to to mention an acceptance of ice cream as a morning food. Just a little while ago, a “Weekend Breakfast” flavor was spotted on the menu at another San Francisco parlor. The recipe for the original appears in the Humphry Slocome Ice Cream Book, published by Chronicle Books in 2012, if you’re the DIY type.

Secret Breakfast: the weed version!

The flavor is technically still a teenager, but Secret Breakfast has already been honored in the cannabis world as well. A cross between the popular strains Grapes and Cream and OG Kush is cultivated and sold under the name in pre-rolls by Sonoma Hills Farm. A smooth and sweet smoke, the collaboration is marketing feat for both companies that shows the enduring influence and adaptability of Godby’s original ideas.

Humphry Slocombe opened its 10th Bay Area scoop shop (The Veranda, 2045 Diamond Boulevard, #34, Concord) in March. The company also operates three locations in San Francisco as well shops in Berkeley, Emeryville, Redwood City, Campbell, and San Mateo. More stores are planned for 2025.

HUMPHRY SLOCOMBE’S SECRET BREAKFAST can be tracked down here.

48 Hills welcomes comments in the form of letters to the editor, which you can submit here. We also invite you to join the conversation on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

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