'Makes people feel good': Cookman Creamery in Asbury Park offers dairy and vegan ice cream
Brett Kimmins
5 min read
ASBURY PARK - Jim Johnson, owner and operator of Cookman Creamery in Asbury Park, finds a special kind of happiness in the world of ice cream.
“It’s a relatable thing,” Johnson said. “We get a lot of kids that come in for their birthdays. Ice cream is very comforting and can brighten up someone’s day. There is something beautiful and simple about it. It’s easy and it makes people feel good.”
Johnson had his entrepreneurial spirit sparked at an early age, growing up working odd jobs.
“Whether it was a paper route or a lawn-cutting business, it started with helping family and grew into a love for all that stuff,” Johnson said. “When I was in eighth or ninth grade, I began helping my grandparents and neighbors with house painting. Before I knew it, I had clients all over town. I initially did it to pay for college, but I ended up loving it because people kept wanting me to come back and do more of those jobs for them.”
Jimmy Johnson, right, and his son, Michael Johnson, show off some of their plant-based vegan and traditional dairy hand-crafted small-batch ice creams, cakes and treats available at Cookman Creamery in Asbury Park, NJ Wednesday, September 27, 2023.
Johnson attended Rowan University and majored in literature, which led him into publishing after he graduated.
“During my junior year of college, I was lucky enough to get an internship with publishing before I went back to school senior year,” Johnson said. “I was offered a job by that same company, TFH, and I took it full-time in Neptune. I did mostly copy editing, but after a while, I took on some writing projects that included caption writing.
“When I got into publishing, it was all so new back then,” Johnson said. “At that time, it was collapsing and was in a seismic shift because it was going from a very mechanical book production to the computer age.”
Cookman Creamery in Asbury Park showcases a cone of rosemary maple beet, which is a cashew butter-based ice cream, and a cone of strawberry, which is an organic coconut cream-based ice cream, and a cup of tahini pumpkin, which is tahini-based ice cream. Wednesday, September 27, 2023.
After working for TFH for five years, Johnson wanted to get back to his roots with high school literature.“I got a teaching job, but I did not have to go back to school,” Johnson said. “The state provides adult education. It consists of 200 hours of state training. You teach during the day and take classes at night. It took about two years to complete the program. I would not have been able to go back to school at that point to get a degree because I had a family, and it was just too expensive.
“I loved the growth in the students,” Johnson said. “I loved to start the year with often incoherent and disorganized ideas and then use planning, research and discussion to formulate stronger and clearer ideas."
But after teaching high school literature for over 20 years, Johnson was frustrated by an overly rigid curriculum.
“It was being sterilized,” Johnson said. “Thirty years ago, you could do an organic lesson plan where you could adapt the curriculum to something significant happening in the world, like 9/11. To have to come back and resume that same curriculum was silly and takes away great learning opportunities. I disagreed with that method of teaching and that’s when I got out of the profession.”
Once Johnson separated himself from the teaching world, he found himself interested in the ice cream business.
“I started out by looking for spaces in alterative markets in Asbury Park,” Johnson said. “I wasn’t rich, so I could buy a space for much. Eight years ago, I found this little slice of a building that was for sale. I was lucky enough to be able to acquire it. It happened quickly and I found something that I really liked.
“I also knew the Asbury area and, at that time, I saw it emerging,” Johnson said. “I wanted to get the momentum back to where Asbury was years ago. I found a good spot and we opened in 2015 on Cookman Avenue.”
Jimmy Johnson, owner of Cookman Creamery, scoops a cup of blueberry pancake, which is a vegan, almond butter-based ice cream, for customer Greg Battista of the Leonardo section of Middletown at the Asbury Park shop. Wednesday, September 27, 2023.
“We have a positive relationship with many of the local businesses and the community,” Johnson said. “We’ve had a lot of local kids from Asbury who have worked for us and that’s all been great. Ice cream is resilient and it’s a low price point.”
Johnson offers both traditional and plant-based ice cream.
“We make ice cream out of almonds, cashews, coconut, tahini, etc.,” Johnson said. “Right now, we have a maple beet flavor that’s made of cashew butter with beets and avocado and is sweetened with maple syrup. That’s the real specialty part and the creative side.
“We also have 16 dairy flavors too, but we do a lot of no gluten and no dairy," he added. "Everybody can get something for themselves.”
“We want to grow our off-season offerings,” Johnson said. “That includes cakes and pie and party packs. We want to cater for parties. Another goal is to open a second location. That will allow us to continue to do what we do best.”
Exterior of Cookman Creamery in Asbury Park, NJ Wednesday, September 27, 2023.
