J P Licks

In 1987, we began making hard and soft frozen yogurt from scratch recipes, achieving the same level of flavor intensity but without the fat. The frozen yogurt "fad", has never ended for us. Frozen yogurt continues to account for 1/3 of our sales. In 1999, we began roasting our own coffee, at our Jamaica Plain "Mothership" (production facility, corporate offices, and retail shop housed in a former Victorian fire house) roasting Organic and Fair Trade beans, our espresso and brewed coffee. Staying true to our commitment to serve the customers of each neighborhood in which we do business, everything J.P. Licks makes and serves is Kosher certified to meet the needs of many of our Jewish customers and we create many ice cream flavors catering to the tastes of our ethnically diverse neighbors as well. We have 13 stores now, 4 Boston locations and 9 in neighboring towns. All are within 15 miles of our J.P. home base, affording us easy access to monitor store operations, cleanliness, and most importantly, friendly and efficient customer service. If you've been around as a business for almost three decades, you’re bound to get a bunch of "Best of . . . " awards, and J.P. Licks has won its fair share . . . over 400 so far. My personal favorite was Boston’s Weekly Dig Magazine’s 2005 award for creating the "Best and Pukiest Flavors of the Year" . . . the "best" was for our "El Diablo", a cinnamon chocolate flavor, heavily laced with cayenne pepper, and "pukiest" for our Bloody Virgin Mary sorbet. It was a refreshingly different accolade. 2006 saw J.P. Licks chosen as the Small Business of the Year by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, from over 150 nominees, for our commitment to the community and for business excellence. This award recognized the hard work and success of my management staff for not only "getting us bigger", but more importantly, "getting us better". So, when folks ask "what’s your plan for the future?". Sometimes I have been known to respond, when the spirit moves me, by singing (and badly imitating Doris Day) . . . "Que sera, sera . . . whatever will be, will be. The future’s not ours to see, que sera, sera".