Note: This story was updated with additional content at 10:50 a.m. April 29.
‘Riding around the Southland you might see an ice cream truck that looks like no other.
Flossmoor resident Pamela Jackson is the owner of Dip n’ Double, an ice cream truck serving gourmet ice cream with a baseball theme and decorated in bright hues of blue, pink, and green. On its side, the truck displays art of two boys enjoying ice cream and other children playing.
Flavors have baseball-themed names like First Base for vanilla, Second Base for chocolate, Triple Play for raspberry sorbet, and Home Run for salted caramel.
The truck can be booked for various celebrations including school, sports, and corporate events, birthday and graduation parties, and class and family reunions.
Jackson is a member of Homewood-Flossmoor High School District 233 Board of Education and has been a resident of Homewood and now Flossmoor the past 15 years.
Before getting into the mobile food industry, Jackson spent 30 years in HR and operation management while also running her own management consulting firms and HR operations Growth Consulting and JRJ Global Impact group.
Jackson said she found that the work was draining her and wanted to direct her passion to something more creative and fun.
“I had the opportunity in October (of last year) to leave my current employer and really decided to do something completely different,” Jackson said. “I was looking for something that was going to be fun, something that was going to bring smiles to people’s faces.”
A friend in St. Louis operates an ice cream truck, and Jackson saw how much fun and success her friend was having and decided to invest in her own ice cream truck.
“I just like had a different concept, you see my truck is very different than any truck you’ve ever seen; and that it would just be a great addition to the community,” Jackson said.
“What I wanted was something that was relatable again in my community, thus the baseball theme,” Jackson said. “I also really believe that representation is really important, so I wanted to make sure it represented everyone, so the diversity is there.”
When Jackson left her corporate job in October, she started the build-out of her truck. It was completed in January, and she held her first event at the end of February.
Along with being booked at schools, Jackson said she also has reading nights, teacher appreciation, and end-of-the-year parties on her books.
Jackson is currently Chicago Public School vendor certified with her target towns being Flossmoor and most of the neighboring communities including Homewood, Olympia Fields and Park Forest.
In the future she plans to have multiple trucks. “We got a number of significant projects underway, and we want to be coast to coast,” Jackson said. “What we’re talking about is how do we expand and how do we scale.”
Jackson said her dream event is to be a vendor at Lollapalooza but wants to learn more about navigating Chicago with her business first.
To book Dip n’ Double for an event, visit the website or call 708-713-5522, or follow Dip n’ Double Instagram and Facebook.