Ice Cream in a Mom-and-Pop Town: Juliet

“It occurred to us that an ice-cream parlour might prove the means to our end.” (Emma Goldman)

In Worcester’s most delightful bit of local history, the anarchist Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, her partner in love and radical politics, operated an ice-cream parlor on Winter Street all too briefly in the year 1892. Short of cash, they’d originally hoped to make their way to the Soviet revolution through selling sodas and “college ices” (sundaes). They changed their minds, however, and decided to finance an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Henry Frick.

Goldman’s dairy-based strategy, if not her strand of politics, would prove a model for independent Worcester entrepreneurs.  Corporate ice cream doesn’t fare well here. Both branches of Friendly’s have closed in the last decade.  There has never been, as far as I know, a Baskin Robbins. What thrives here are the mom-and-pop ice cream businesses, from the Broadway Diner in the Canal District, to Meola’s across the West Boylston town line. I’d even throw the Puerto Rican snow-cone carts that work the tough streets of Main South into this category. But, on a favorite block of the city, one particular ice cream parlor captures for me so much of what I like about Worcester.

Really? anything I want?

Cool Licks Ice Cream is exactly that, and only that: ice cream. No espresso drinks and no biscotti. Just hard-serve, soft-serve, premium, frozen hard yogurt, various sundaes, slushes, shakes, and ice-cream sandwiches. It opened last summer on Pleasant at Merrick Street, within a stone’s throw of Banhan’s, Ed Hyders, a halal butcher that never actually stocks the camel meat they advertise, a falafel place a friend tells me is very good, and, now, the fabulous art  supply store, C.C. Lowell. Two service windows open onto Merrick Street, and the door into the scrupulously-clean interior is on Pleasant. Cool Licks shares its parking with the Pickle Barrel, yet another classic Worcester business.

Elisa, whom we met as a smiling face through the service window, had two very important things to tell us: first, that with our new Loyalty Card, the sixth of anything we ordered would be free.  This meant, as she explained, that we could order five small cones and the sixth item, be it a sundae or a full quart of ice cream would be free.  This was great business, but the second sentence was sheer magic: “dips and sprinkles are always free.”  Camilla, of ten and a half years, was transported. Rainbow sprinkles on cookie-dough ice cream? Yes. Chocolate sprinkles on death-by-chocolate? Yes. A chocolate dip, too?  Emma Goldman would have approved. This business strategy is truly each according to his needs.

Inside, Cool Licks is an ice-cream parlor in its most platonic, DIY form. No loud music or video screens, no complicated toppings bar, no precious chalk-board menu with cute local allusions, no ATM machine making money off of the perfectly reasonable cash-only policy. Just the counter, cafe tables for two, natural light, a spotless linoleum floor, cheerful lime green plastic seats, an awning over a big faux window, and one of the best pieces of interior decorating ever.

Let us rest on our ice-cream laurels.

On our first visit, we shared the space with two young white women who looked like recent Clark graduates, a Spanish-speaking mom who was picking up a large order, and two teenage boys. After my tongue had thawed out, I approached the gentleman behind the counter, whom I’d watched having two frozen chocolate bananas for an early dinner (a mere $1.50 a piece), and asked whether he was the owner or manager, or if one of his co-workers was. Confusingly, he told me they are all managers and owners, but it would seem that some managers are more equal than others. This friendly gentleman, Nestor (pictured on the right of Elisa), lived on the same block of Merrick Street when he arrived in the United States from Albania some twenty-five years ago. After years in the restaurant business in Rhode Island, he returned to the neighborhood to help his brother Thomas (on the left) get Cool Licks up and running. Nestor showed me the patio area, complete with picnic tables and umbrellas, with more decorations to come. On a second visit, Thomas did me the honor of asking for design ideas, and we talked all about the challenges of running a business in a poor urban neighborhood.

So far, we’ve only had the hard ice cream. On our first visit, Camilla deliberated at charming length, and then selected cookie-dough ice cream with the aforementioned sprinkles. I had chocolate peanut-butter so I could compare it to Meola’s. It was almost half the price (you can’t order anything for less than $4.50 at Meola’s, and the comparable scoop at Cool Licks was $2.80), just as tasty (if anything, less nauseatingly rich), and still more than I could wisely finish.  Coffee ice cream was more than satisfactory, but I should have listened to the staff, who are full of strong and well-informed preferences. Thomas’s favorite, for good reason, is cookies’n’cream, but it couldn’t stand up to my St. Louis memories of Ted Drewes’ cookies’n’cream frozen custard (as far as I can see, there is no frozen custard on the East Coast). Elisa urged maple-walnut upon me with enthusiasm and eloquence, and she was also right. It has a strong maple syrup flavor balanced out by the cream, with absolute lashings of walnuts (Ken’s pistachio was also packed with nut meats).

So what? you residents of more sophisticated cities might ask. So they have good ice cream and a patio next to the parking lot?  Yes, and so much more: a good product at a fair price, a friendly, non-extortionary business plan, a happy destination for young and old in a poor neighborhood, Old World cleanliness, and straight-up good cheer. It’s American capitalism at its very finest. In full disclosure, this post, its title, and introduction were all written before I made it over to Cool Licks (there was originally a paragraph about the piragua carts, and more than anyone needed to know about white flight and West Boylston). But all that went to the cutting room floor, because on my first investigative visit, there stood Nestor, telling me that what he liked most about Worcester were the mom-and-pop businesses, and that’s what succeeds here. Nestor and Thomas, you are right, and this is my bit to help you all do so.

Cool Licks
325 Pleasant Street
Seven Days a Week, 12:00 to 9:00 PM