A local gem.
America’s love affair with ice cream goes back more than 100 years. For the South Shore community of Cohasset, the town’s love affair with this sweet treat has bordered on obsessive since the establishment of J.J.’s Dairy Hut in 1956, after Kimball’s ice cream store closed its doors at 140 Chief Justice Cushing Highway in 1955.
For well over half a decade, J.J.’s Dairy Hut has been employing Cohasset teenagers to provide customers with both scoops and smiles. Current owner Lilly Sestito knows only too well the long hours, hard work, and sticky arms endured by J.J.’s army of seasonal teens as she started her first sweet shift at the tender age of 13 under the tutelage of Charlotte Yourell. Charlotte and her sister owned J.J.’s in the late ’60s and ’70s until Frank Loiacono “Lokie” bought J.J.’s from them in 1977. Charlotte, however, wasn’t ready to step away from the dairy hut and continued working there and training the next generation of J.J.’s scoopers, including Lilly. After high school graduation, Lilly happily toiled 60+ work weeks at the ice creamery until 1989. Still, in their early 20s, she and her husband Joe, another Cohasset local, cleaned out their savings and purchased J.J.’s from Lokie. In addition to Charlotte, Lokie also stayed on at the dairy hut for a bit to even out the median age range of the staff, mentor the new owners, and continue to run the joint like a well-oiled machine.
While some things at J.J.’s has changed, Lilly is no longer behind the counter, has become a successful realtor, and Joe established his own landscaping business decades ago, many things have not. The dairy hut still serves as the location where many a Cohasset teenager experiences their first job, with Lilly and Joe’s children taking turns behind the counter, the use of Charlotte’s old recipes for some current menu offerings, and of course, carrying on the tradition of creating delicious treats and food. Behind the counter, you’ll also see Sara Sestito, her daughters, and Lilly and Joe’s daughter too!
Throughout the years, J.J.’s Dairy Hut has become a popular gathering place from late spring to early fall for locals and returning South Shore celebrities and performers at the South Shore Music Circus venue, proving even the rich and famous love a good scoop of ice cream. In the not-too-distant future, kids and pups alike will be able to devour their favorite ice cream treat at a second J.J.’s Dairy Hut location, J.J.’s at the General. Formerly the old Brown’s Store built in 1820 in the Beechwood neighborhood, Lilly and Joe are once again investing in Cohasset’s rich history, this time renovating the building and grounds to their former glory as a neighborhood general store, but this time with the addition of some delicious J.J.’s Dairy Hut ice cream.
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