I received an inquiry from China Millman of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  ”Why does Boston seem to have so many ice cream stores?’

It is often repeated that Bostonians eat more ice cream per capita than people do in other parts of the US.  I think this a never-verified “factoid” but probably true.  I remember once, just before Toscanini’s opened, standing in a snowstorm in Harvard Square, waiting to cross the street.  People on either side of me were eating ice cream cones.  I thought to myself, “this could be a good place to open an ice cream store.”

There are several possible reasons for the existence of so many ice cream stores in Boston.

One is that the city has a lot of good colleges and ice cream is a perfect date for somewhat serious students who don’t drink with the enthusiasm of other collegetown populations.

In fact, before online registration I had a friend who speculated that Bostonians were so willing to wait in line for food at places like Pizzeria Regina and Bartley’s Burgers and the original Legal Sea Foods because twice a year they all waited on line to register for classes.

Boston’s mostly private colleges have a more affluent student body that can pay for very good ice cream but not gourmet dinners.  I once helped a man open an ice cream store in the high desert of California, in a county full of military installations.  His competion was Thrifty Drugs, where at that time you could buy a peculiar cubic scoop of ice cream for 10 cents.

There is also a theory that in cold climates people eat high fat diets to stay warm.  In hot climates they eat spicy low fat diets.  So Bostonians eat more ice cream per capita than people do in Miami.  And eating ice cream usually results in coating your mouth so that you need to drink something.  In hot parts of the US people skip the ice cream and drink huge quantities of iced tea, Coke, Dr. Pepper and RC Cola.

Another theory is historical and relies on the existence of The Triangular Trade during colonial times.  Sugar was brought to New England and fostered the growth of the New England candy industry. Ice cream was an afterthought.  Some historians now say that The Trianglular Trade was a myth but Boston does have a lot of candy companies and a lot of ice cream companies.

Long ago in college, when discussing “location theory” in an urban geography class at Macalester College, my professor said that a major reason for Detroit’s growth as an auto production center was because Henry Ford lived there.  In the case of ice cream in Boston I would mention Howard Johnson, once the king of roadside ice cream stores but pay special attention to Steve Herrell’s decision to move to Boston
and eventually open Steve’s Ice Cream in Somerville, Mass.  I worked at Steve’s, as did Amy Miller of Amy’s Ice Creams in Texas.  Ben and Jerry began as awkward copycats of Steve’s store.  Coldstone and Marble Slab are corporate updates on that first store.  Steve still makes ice cream in Northhampton, Mass. which of course is a collegetown.