Weather 
DANA POINT, Calif. () — For nearly 20 years, Vicki Hoekstra has been scooping up Thrifty Ice Cream in Dana Point. She loves her job, namely her interactions with her customers.
She and the counter she works behind haven’t changed, but the store they sit inside has.
“I talked to my customers at Rite Aid and got to know them and now they remember me here,” Vicki said.
In 2008, she started working at Rite Aid on Del Prado. But in 2023, she learned that her store was one of many across the region set to close. Losing the longtime pharmacy meant unless she was willing to move to another city, Vicki was losing her job.
“They wanted me to go to Santa Ana. I said no, I’ll retire,” said Vicki Hoekstra.
Meanwhile, Mike and Carrie Foster and their partners Steve and Leigh Dunn, who own Killer Dana, had a plan for the old Rite Aid building.
“We had two different stores, much smaller, and we go, ‘wow, this would be kind of right in the heart of Dana Point, not too far from our original location.’ And lots of parking and much bigger so we could close down our two little stores and combine it here. So we took a leap of faith and we did it,” Mike Foster explained.
Killer Dana, a local surf shop, was founded in 1991 by Gary Wright and sold in 2008 to La Jolla Group. The Fosters and Dunns bought it in 2017 – a financial risk at the time, they said, but they didn’t want the community to lose it.
The shop pays homage to Dana Point’s surf culture and history. It’s named after the beach city’s famous right-hand point break that disappeared with the development of the marina decades ago.
“There was so much history here that just isn’t told that much, you know? Huntington Beach has the moniker of Surf City and they have their surf history, but if you really do the research, the core of the surf industry was Dana Point,” Mike Foster said.
Their new, larger store saw immediately donations from the community, including surfboards from local heroes and legends, along with iconic photographs that tell the history of the city.
In a community that’s seen so much change, they wanted to preserve a piece of the past.
“I said if this happened, we have to keep the Thrifty’s,” Mike Foster said.
Carrie and Mike Foster said they received five “no’s” from the ice cream company, but on their sixth ask, they got a “yes.”
“I just kept calling and I wrote emails and then I finally got to the right person that heard the story,” Mike Foster said.
They knew it wouldn’t be the same without Vicki, so with help from local social media groups, they tracked her down.
“It was so funny because she started the conversation off with, ‘I just want to be up front with you. I used to get in trouble a lot at Ride Aid for talking to customers too much.’ And we just looked at each other and said, ‘Perfect,'” Mike Foster recalled.
Now, locals and visitors can find Vicki back behind the ice cream counter — the same one from her years at Rite Aid — serving up the same iconic cylindrical scoops.
“I just love working here. It’s so much fun,” Vicki said. “As long as I’m not senile and I can walk, I’m staying.”
© 2026 Television,
