Jodi Ashby has been busy getting acquainted with the daily operation of Evansville-based Lic’s Deli & Ice Cream since August. That’s when she purchased the 75-year-old business from Don Smith, whose family has owned the restaurant for more than 60 years.
Lic’s has seven locations in Evansville, Newburgh, Vincennes and Owensboro, Kentucky. Ashby spoke with Inside INdiana Business about the restaurant’s legacy and her plans for its future.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tell me about your background. What were you doing before you bought Lic’s?
I was a realtor most recently. I still am a realtor, but that was intermittent only for the last year. Before that, I did local economic development in Kentucky and for a short time in Texas. My background is workforce development, economic development, industrial development and human resources.
Why did you want to buy the restaurant?
I reached out to them about five years ago through email and was chit-chatting about what their plan was for the future. My son and I were both interested in Lic’s Deli & Ice Cream. He was a young teenager at the time. But we had been playing around with the idea of eventually owning a restaurant.
We had passed Lic’s Deli & Ice Cream in Owensboro, and this was during COVID, and they were closed during breakfast hours. I thought with COVID and having a drive-thru, I was surprised that they weren’t open. I reached out to the owners and got a hold of Jamia Brown, the daughter of Don Smith. She told me at that time they weren’t quite ready to sell, but they were eventually going to explore that option and would reach back out to me.
Jamia asked me to send her an email, and I did. And she kept that email. Last year, an email popped through from Lic’s Deli & Ice Cream asking me if I was still interested. And we started negotiating from there and finally closed almost five years to the day. That email was sent on July 30, 2020, and we closed on Aug. 1, 2025.
Why did the Smith family want to sell Lic’s?
They had owned it since 1963. The mother, Jane, was the artist of all the paintings, cards and different things that are sold in Lic’s Deli & Ice Cream stores. She passed away a few years ago. Don Smith is 88 years old. Jamia and Kara, the two daughters, were having to run it all, and they didn’t have any family members to pass it down to because their kids were involved with other family businesses. So there was nobody to take it on.
As they aged, they found they were either stuck with it or had to find somebody who would buy it. And they didn’t want to sell it to anyone who would just part out the real estate. It’s a successful business. It’s 75 years old, and they didn’t want to see it go away because they aged out of it. So we started negotiating the sale, and I agreed that I wanted to keep the legacy of Lic’s Deli & Ice Cream around if possible. They liked that idea.
What are your short-term goals for the business?
Short-term goals would be expanding our hours. We are currently going through the process of trying to streamline our staffing for the hours that we are open, make sure that we’re fully staffed and functional and speed up service. We’re somewhat slow because of understaffing. We’re trying to fix that.
We want to maintain the quality of our products. Our food is exceptionally good for a deli, and our ice cream is high-quality. One of the only competitors we have that is comparable to our quality of ice cream is Häagen-Dazs. I want to get that word out to the public and help them understand what they have right here in their backyard when it comes to that.
We want to expand the breakfast, but we’re not sure when that might happen. But that’s a goal. We recently went live on DoorDash. We are also trying to go live on Uber Eats and Grubhub. So that’s another goal to keep the business running more efficiently. We want to take full advantage of the real estate we have, and then we want to expand.
What are your long-term goals for Lic’s?
To become a national brand while still maintaining the quality and legacy of the brand. We want to expand as far as we can, but that includes a lot of logistical and efficiency challenges we have to work out. We’ll get there, but it’s going to be a process.
There are a lot of people who don’t realize this is a local, family-owned business. It is not a franchise. If you come to any Lic’s Deli & Ice Cream, you are supporting my family. We make all of our breads, chili and sauces. We make all our flavorings for ice cream, and we make all our ice cream. Most of the stuff you get in our stores is made by Lic’s. It’s our recipes. We bake it in our bakery. We mix it in our ice cream mixer. We do all of that.
What’s staying the same, and what will change?
We are not taking any items off the menu. We recognize we have a large menu, but the menu has been that way for a long time. There are longtime customers of Lic’s Deli & Ice Cream, and they like the items on the menu, and they don’t want to see those go away. So I will not be removing any of those items. Mainly, people fear I’m going to get rid of the Choco Creams, which would never happen.
We may change the logo eventually. We may update some of that. But the brand of Lic’s Deli & Ice Cream will remain the retro ice cream shop, deli-type place, hopefully forever. We’re going to try to modernize some of the dining room areas. Maybe introduce some fluffy chairs and couches in a few corners to make cozy spots like in a coffee shop. But the overall style they stuck with all these years will remain.
How has the transition been so far?
I’m learning a lot. We have a lot of long-term employees, and Lic’s Deli & Ice Cream has always taken good care of its employees. They pay them well. There are always bonuses. They have great benefits. We take good care of our employees compared to industry standards.
We have several employees who have been here for 40 years or more. We have lots of employees who have been here for 20 years or more, and those who have been here between five and 20 years. That speaks volumes for the brand.
We are actively looking for new locations, and we are hiring. We raised the wages of our entry-level employees to help recruit.
What’s your favorite item on the menu?
I’m absolutely addicted to the banana peanut butter smoothies. I have to have one every single day since I started here. I eat a ton of our grilled cheeses because I’m a cheese fan, and our bread is great. We also have great burgers, but I don’t eat a lot of hamburgers. I’ve had one or two, and they are fantastic. But my go-tos are those two items: the grilled cheeses and the banana peanut butter shakes. I could eat my weight in them and probably have.