J.P. Licks, Boston’s favorite ice cream shop is excited to announce its 25th anniversary year of roasting coffee. Fair Trade and Organic Certified coffee have been freshly micro-roasted from the Jamaica Plains headquarters since 1999, and J.P. Licks will be commemorating the milestone with the perfect celebratory new ice cream flavor, Birthday Cake Ice Cream. The new flavor, sweet ice cream with pieces of yellow cake, rainbow sprinkles, and a buttercream frosting ripple, is available now in all 17 J.P. Licks store locations.
“Everyone knows us for our ice cream, but over the last 25 years we also have been roasting our own coffee,” says J.P. Licks founder and owner Vincent Petryk. “We roast down the middle . . . dark enough for a hearty brew but not so dark that every bean tastes burnt. And honestly, what is a better pairing than to celebrate with our latest and greatest flavor, Birthday Cake Ice Cream. My son has been asking for a birthday cake flavor for years and helped to inspire the sweet and buttery flavor. If you think about it, birthday cake is almost always accompanied by ice cream so it’s really a no brainer, here at J.P. Licks your birthday cake is now served with a spoon!”
Fresh micro-roasted, fair trade, and organic certified coffee is available by the cup or pound, whole bean or ground, at all locations. Coffee is roasted in a Dedrick 25 lb. roaster, producing about 20 different types of coffee, both single origin and blends. J.P. Licks has a few direct buyer relation-ships with farms, including farms in Guatemala and Nicaragua. These farms help the community earn fairer wages and build schools, houses, and other things needed to sustain their communities. The team at J.P. Licks has visited some of these communities, including the family owned farm, El Recreo Estate Farm, in Jinotega, Nicaragua.
J.P. Licks also recently announced the addition of Dr. Aisha Densmore-Bey, the new visiting artist at the Coolidge Corner store. The ice cream shop has been showcasing local artists in-store for over 20 years. Artists display their work at J.P. Licks for a minimum of three months and their artwork is often available for purchase– J.P. Licks does not take any commissions on any artwork sales. J.P. Licks seeks artists local to each store’s neighborhood via arts councils, alumni groups, artist studio spaces, and word of mouth. The full list of artists currently showing at J.P. Licks can be found here, along with a list of every artist who has shown since the beginning of 2019.
Dr. Densmore-Bey received her Doctorate of Design from the Harvard Graduate School of De-sign and teaches design at various colleges in Massachusetts and runs a creative office specializing in architecture, interiors, graphic design, design strategy, film, and art. She is the founder and past chair of the Museum and Exhibit Design Committee at the Boston Society of Architects, the creator of Future Prep 101(™), a two time recipient of the BSA Foundation grant. Aisha also wrote and illustrated the children’s book “Who Made My Stuff?” which is included in the National Museum of African American History and Culture, part of the Smithsonian Institution. The artwork Aisha has on display at J.P. Licks is acrylic paint on canvas, incorporating portraiture, lighting, and dessert.
Please join J.P. Licks on May 14, at 6 p.m. ET at a reception at the Coolidge Corner store located at 311 Harvard Street in Brookline to celebrate Dr. Densmore-Bey’s art and 25 years of coffee roasting. Dr. Densmore-Bey plans to hold an Instagram contest around coordinating her paintings and ice cream flavors into t-shirt designs. @aishabdesigner https://lnk.bio/aishadbdesigner
Locally owned and operated by Vincent Petryk, J.P. Licks now boasts 17 store locations through-out Massachusetts and has remained homemade and locally owned and operated. The company employs up to 453 employees in the summer months and ships coffee (which is roasted in-house at the Jamaica Plain store) and merchandise anywhere in the continental USA. All ice cream and ice cream cakes are made in house in the Jamaica Plain headquarters.
Since opening its doors, J.P. Licks has been committed to supporting each store’s community by donating in- kind donations to small, local organizations.
J.P. Licks has won many awards over the years for their intensely flavored homemade ice cream and frozen yogurt, most recently Best of Boston 2021 from Boston Magazine. J.P. Licks has received over 300 “Best of” awards over the last 40 years. Known for their high quality, scrumptious treats J.P. Licks was named Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce’s 2006 “Small Business of the Year”.