Los Angeles Community Rallies to Help Black-Owned Vegan Ice Cream Shop Stay in Business

The Los Angeles community is rallying to help the owner of vegan ice cream shop Divine Dips stay in business. Divine Dips opened a brick-and-mortar location in downtown LA last year and offers vegan ice cream made from a blend of coconut and cashew milks in flavors such as Infinite Mint, Amaretto Almond Trio, Caffe No-Lait, Chocolate Raspberry Truffle, and Madagascar Vanilla Bean. The shop—which was voted Best Vegan Ice Cream in Los Angeles by media outlet LAWeekly—was opened by entrepreneur Diane Jacobs with little to no capital. Jacobs hoped to eventually find an investment partner to help grow and expand the business. According to a recent GoFundMe campaign created by Divine Dips customer Jerry Abraham, MD, the business has not grown quickly enough or found an investor and is making approximately 30 percent of what is needed to break even. “Mounting debt, inability to pay rent, unexpected exorbitant landlord fees added to the rent, not enough money to get ingredients, not enough to hire staff,” Abraham wrote on the GoFundMe campaign. “Ms. Diane has made the ultimate sacrifice, as she has been making the ice crème and running the store without taking a salary of any kind for more than a year. Now she’s in danger of losing her shop to eviction and her home to foreclosure.” The funding campaign has raised approximately $6,000 of its $127,000 goal, which will go towards helping Jacobs pay off debt and expand her products into the retail market. Earlier this week, vegan actress Tabitha Brown went to support Divine Dips after hearing from her fans about the ice cream, but the shop was closed for inventory. “I’ve had at least 200 people tag, DM, text, and email me about @divinedipsdtla in the last three days!” Brown posted on Instagram. “So today I drove downtown so excited to try this vegan ice cream and they are closed for inventory. I’m so sad, but I will try another day.”