For Jerrica and Jameshia Croley, owning an ice cream shop means having the opportunity to put a smile on every customer’s face. 

Jerrica and Jameshia are twin sisters and co-owners of Never Too Much Creamery, a colorful ice cream shop in the space next to their father’s barbershop in the east end of Lexington. 

“Our dad came to us and said, ‘Alright guys, I have this building for you all to do whatever you want. Just have fun with it,’” Jerrica said. 

The family-, Black- and woman-owned business officially opened in June 2023, and they’re currently preparing to reopen for the spring and summer. The Croley sisters said they’re excited for business to start back up again because they’re always excited to come into work. 

“Me and my sister have worked since we were 13 because we just love customer service and giving back to people, so we have always worked in customer service,” Jameshia said. “But this is the funnest one we’ve had. It’s not a drag to come in, we get to have fun with the kids.” 

In college, Jameshia had always wanted to open a Turkish-style ice cream parlor, doing tricks and interacting with the children. But since the consistency of Turkish ice cream is slightly different, they decided to go with normal ice cream, adding their own personal flair.    

“We wanted to bring something out of town into town,” Jerrica said. “When we go out of town, everything is big, so that’s what we wanted to do because everything in Lexington is kind of small in a sense. We wanted all of our milkshakes to be big and over-the-top.”  

Between its bright interior and no shortage of sweet treats, the creamery draws in a lot of kids. This was part of Jerrica and Jameshia’s goal: to create a safe space for Lexington’s children to come hang out. When the sisters were younger, they said they had a place to be with other kids and have fun; now, they don’t see a place like that in the city. 

“When we were younger we had a community where we could go to the recreation center and other places to hang out, and we don’t have that any more,” Jameshia said. “A lot of the kids now get in a lot of trouble because they don’t have that in Lexington or any people to look up to. We wanted to make something for them.”  

The ice cream shop isn’t just beloved by kids, but by many adults in the community as well, the twins said. It’s become a place for people of all ages to come, talk and maybe even make a friend. When they first started the business, the sisters realized that the community of Lexington loves supporting small businesses as long as you make them feel comfortable. 

“It took a while for us to realize what we did,” Jameshia said. “We honestly just wanted to open a business and we wanted to focus on the kids. We didn’t realize that it had such a big impact on the community at all.” 

While the community means a lot to the pair, family is most important to Jerrica and Jameshia. The sisters have seen each other almost every day for 28 years and said they love owning a business together. 

“We can do anything together, and we’ve been through everything together, the bad times and the good times,” Jameshia said. “We kind of push each other. We may have our arguments but we still have to run a business. That helped us too because it makes us better as people and siblings.” 

Jerrica and Jameshia’s parents have pushed and supported them through everything. Their dad told them that they could open a business and made them believe it could happen, and now they want to do that for young girls with similar dreams. 

“I like to help other little girls see they could (own a business). When they find out that me and my sister are the owners, their faces just light up. That’s what we do it for,” Jerrica said. “We never thought we could do something like this until my dad told us we could. Now we can do that for them and our daughters.”