Mayor Walsh and friends cut the ribbon outside Chill on Park, a new cafe and restaurant in Fields Corner. Photos by Don Harney/Mayor’s Office

Mayor Martin Walsh hailed the opening of Chill on Park, an ice cream cafe in Fields Corner, at its ribbon-cutting event last Friday, expressing the hope that the shop, which was founded by Dorchester natives and employs teenagers from the neighborhood, will provide a sense of community as it delivers its ice cream to local patrons.

Walsh and others cheered the efforts of Chill on Park founders Alan Issokson, owner of H. Levenbaum Insurance and Real Estate, and his wife Wendy for their efforts in helping to revitalize Fields Corner.

“It’s great that Wendy and Alan committed here. This is their building and they’ve been here for generations,” said Walsh said of the Issoksons’ property at 142 Park St. “They’re an important part of the community, and having an ice cream shop in the Fields Corner neighborhood helps express the vibrancy of this community.”

In keeping with their desire to make Chill on Park a truly local business, the Issoksons approached the Boys and Girls Club of Dorchester and the Lewis D. Brown Peace Institute in search for teens for their workforce, whom they dubbed Team Chill. Wendy, who is the manager of Chill on Park, discussed her motivations for going to these organizations:

“My goal was to create a place to provide opportunities for kids in the neighborhood, to bring them along, and give them jobs and experience. The ice cream coffee shop is the vehicle to do that, but the main purpose for me is to create jobs and opportunities for kids in the area.” In the end, she hired eight teens from the Club and three from the Institute.

When the retail space at 142 Park St. became vacant, the Issoksons approached several people and asked them to consider opening an a ice cream cafe that they felt the community had desired for a long time. “The community for a long, long time has wanted a local place that they can call their own, a place they can get something good like coffee and ice cream,” said Alan, “but also a place where they’d be comfortable enough to sit in and enjoy it, like they see in a lot of other communities.”

When those approaches didn’t bear fruit, they decided to pursue the venture on their own. “When this space became available, myself and my team showed it to a lot of people,” said Alan, “and they all said ‘no.’ Frankly I got a little aggravated. I was complaining to Wendy when she said, ‘If you think it’s such a good idea, let’s just do it.’ So we did.”

In addition to the mayor, the ribbon-cutting was attended by City Councillor Frank Baker; Mike Joyce, vice president of programming for the Boys and Girls Club of Dorchester; and Clementina Chéry and Milton Jones, president/CEO and director of operations, respectively, at the Lewis D. Brown Peace institute.

Joyce thanked the Issoksons for actively engaging in the community by hiring local teens. “It’s a great way to get engaged in the community, and it’s a great way for the community to engage in the business. If you’re really going to open a business in a local neighborhood, you can’t do it any better than Wendy has done it right here,” he said.

Jack Broderick, 16, of Neponset, is one of the teens who acquired a job at Chill on Park through the Boys and Girls Club. “I went to the Boys and Girls club and talked with Mike, and he sent me here. I’m lucky. It’s a fun business, and the people here are great. You meet a lot of people and it’s great to get to just talk to people,” he said.

De’Chanele Delva, 17, also of Dorchester, found a job at Chill on Park through the club as well and hopes that the business will be a hub for the Fields Corner community. “It’s really fun and exciting; it’s new every single day,” she said. “You see new faces every day; new people come in all the time. I really hope more people come.”