Happy birthday to Three Twins Ice Cream, which turns five years old today.

According to the Three Twins website, their first scoop shop opened in San Rafael "a few minutes after noon on August 27, 2005. That first day remains a blur for [founder] Neal [Gottlieb], as he was exhausted from less than four hours of sleep the night before. "In the beginning, Neal did not have a single employee. He would make ice cream in the morning, run the shop all day, clean the shop at night and do paperwork afterwards. It was a challenging schedule, but it was exhilarating to finally be in business and witness the enjoyment that our new customers received from Three Twins Ice Cream." Today, Three Twins operates three locations -- San Rafael, Napa, and right here in the Lower Haight at 254 Fillmore St. Their pints can be found at a number of retailers around the Bay Area. Gottlieb is offering a number of observations via Twitter today, including:

• "Bay Area ice cream market was completely different 5 years ago. Apart from Fairfax Scoop, nobody was making ice cream w/good ingredients."
• "At about 1,000 square feet, the freezers in the [Petaluma] factory are almost twice the size of the initial store"
• "We now employ about 40 people (counting full-time and p/t employees), most notably my mother and father, who are key (and paid) employees"
• "Our sales that first month in 2005 were less than our sales from 8 hours of selling" at the SF Street Food Festival last weekend
• "And our sales last month were greater than our sales from our first year in business (though so were our losses, so we still have work to do)"

Congrats to Gottlieb and the whole Three Twins team! Keep on scoopin'!