Around 2:30 p.m. on any school day, a 1940s cottage on Los Altos Avenue fills with kids debating frozen yogurt toppings over the low hum of an espresso machine. Behind this deliberately unhurried operation is Stacy Savides — reportedly Google’s 50th employee and a long-tenured HR executive — who used her tech-sector earnings not to fund another app, but to hand a neighborhood something it could actually walk to. That choice looks sharper now, as newer candy-focused spots open across San Francisco — a reminder of the beloved treats culture that has long shaped American neighborhoods. The Sweet Shop has been doing this since 2009.
Sugar, Coffee, and a Real Business Underneath
The shop runs on more than nostalgia — candy and frozen yogurt each account for roughly 30% of sales, per manager Sandra Colunga, with coffee, pastries, and sandwiches filling out the rest.
Colunga runs daily operations while Savides visits periodically. The menu is specific: frozen yogurt runs $4.25–$6.25, with toppings at 75 cents each across flavors from vanilla to seasonal varieties. The Sunrise on Sourdough sandwich is $8.75 (add ham for 75 cents); the Farmers Melt is $8.50. Verve Coffee beans — locally roasted — supply the espresso bar. The shop’s website states that 5% of proceeds support local schools, though prior reporting has cited a higher figure; the exact amount has not been independently verified. Many staff members are high-school or college students among their first jobs.
The shop at a glance:
- 994 Los Altos Avenue; Tue–Fri 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sat–Sun 11:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.; closed Monday
- Frozen yogurt: $4.25–$6.25; toppings 75 cents each
- Sunrise on Sourdough: $8.75; Farmers Melt: $8.50
- Busiest window: after school, 2:30–5 p.m.
- Staff: largely high school and college students
The Detail No Algorithm Can Replicate
Some regulars become part of the furniture — and the register.
Harry Logan — 94, retired Hewlett-Packard, a regular since shortly after the 2009 opening — rarely changes his order: junior frozen treat, café au lait, Sunrise on Sourdough. The register has a dedicated discounted button labeled “Harry’s Special.” Staff keep his preferred hot sauce on hand, per SFGATE reporting.
“A happy place.” — Harry Logan, on The Sweet Shop, per SFGATE
That is not a loyalty program. That is a relationship. The building itself has housed neighborhood grocers since the early 1940s — Santa Rita Food Shop, Kinder’s Grocery Store, and later Foodland — before Savides renovated it into its current cottage form with wood shingles and striped awnings. School fundraising auctions, where students bid to work as servers, have raised several thousand dollars at some events.
What Savides Actually Built
A Google executive funded a candy shop — and according to her own words, that was precisely the intention.
Newer Bay Area candy shops skew toward contemporary retail concepts. Savides, according to SFGATE, had something more specific in mind for Los Altos.
“My contribution to Los Altos.” — Stacy Savides, on The Sweet Shop, per SFGATE
That framing is the whole story. No pivot. No platform. Just a renovated corner cottage that has served the same neighborhood for fifteen years — much like the legacy kitchens that have anchored communities for generations — and keeps a 94-year-old’s hot sauce behind the counter.
If you find yourself in Los Altos, go after 2:30 p.m. on a weekday. Watch the after-school rush fill the candy aisle. Harry Logan may well be there, café au lait in hand, entirely at ease amid the noise.
