Ice Cream Jubilee - Navy Yard — Restaurant in Washington

Incident at Jubilee Ice Cream Shop – August 4, 2025

On August 4, 2025, I visited Jubilee Ice Cream Shop located at 301 Water St. SE in Navy Yard after watching a boat pageant. I went into the shop to purchase ice cream for myself and my friend.

When I entered, no one greeted me. Instead, I was stared at, which made me feel uncomfortable. I stood in line behind a woman and her daughter, waiting to be helped. One employee, who appeared to be Asian, asked if I needed help. I told him I was undecided about my order, but my friend wanted mint chocolate chip.

Another employee then offered me a sample since I hadn’t decided yet. I accepted and asked to try the bourbon banana flavor. He dipped a spoon into the ice cream and held it out toward me. As I reached for the spoon, he pulled it back, which confused me. I asked if I wasn’t allowed to take the sample, and he responded by saying, “No, here — in your mouth.”

I was shocked. He then repeated this inappropriate gesture multiple times, trying to feed me the sample directly from his hand into my mouth — even after I said no. I was extremely uncomfortable, embarrassed, and felt objectified. This behavior was completely inappropriate, and I believe it crossed professional and personal boundaries. I tried to de-escalate by turning to the other employee (Xander) and said I now knew what I wanted — a scoop of the rum raisin. The other employee again tried to offer me another sample by hand, pushing past Xander, which I declined by waving him off and saying NO I’m not doing that.

Xander eventually served me, and I stepped out to retrieve my phone to complete payment. When I returned, I noticed that the same employee who tried to feed me was now standing outside the store. I assumed he might have been off work, but as I left, he followed me and began asking questions while walking behind me. This added to my discomfort and left me feeling unsafe and harassed. I paid 22 almost $23 for two ice creams which in itself is astronomical, but I also paid to be sexually harassed at this location in the Navy yard. Let’s not go To this location or Jubilee ever they charge too much and obviously don’t care about that customers because at the time that I was there, they did not have change and told me that so they kept my change as well. And I just read this is a woman own business. She should really be ashamed of how she did not train her...

I stumbled upon Ice Cream Jubilee through a Feastly event. They had a feasters' tasting party today and owner Victoria Lai talked about her journey with Ice Cream Jubilee and the flavors. I sampled two ice cream flavors - honey lemon lavender and Thai iced tea - and two sorbet flavors - ginger peach kombucha and coconut lychee lime. My favorites out of the four were Thai iced tea and ginger peach kombucha. I also tried the dark and stormy, which is candied ginger and Gosling's dark rum, and I'd recommend it. I like that it's not overpowering and you get the subtle hints of rum. Victoria also brought out some other super secret flavors to sample.

Ice Cream Jubilee recently opened in the Yards Park neighborhood of Southeast DC, right next to one of my favorite restaurants, Osteria Morini. The Yards Park neighborhood has been undergoing renovation and the facelift is noticeably better and different than what it was before. Ice Cream Jubilee is a nice, little addition to the other various restaurants and services in this neighborhood.

Ice Cream Jubilee's flavors are made with butterfat and they use local ingredients such as cream from South Mountain Creamery and they use a small batch technique so the ice cream is fresh. In addition to the aforementioned flavors I tried, there are many other flavors such as gin and tonic, banana bourbon caramel, caramel popcorn, grapefruit campari, and more!

I enjoyed listening to Victoria and how she started Ice Cream Jubilee, the trials and tribulations that come with entrepreneurship and starting/running a small business, and applaud her for chasing after a passion and dream after many years in the corporate world. She says she thinks about ice cream all the time, so I'm sure we'll see plenty of other unique flavors as time passes. Congratulations on the opening and thanks for a great...

The ice cream is very tasty. The value for your dollar is what subtracted 2 of the 3 other stars. If this was just about the ice cream it would have gotten a 3. Its good but honestly I wouldn't go out of my way for it. The most outstanding thing about my experience is hands down how small the cups and cones were. I got a cup and a waffle cone. My gf got a waffle cone. The cone was huge. Same as most places would serve. The scoop was so small I had to break most of the cone off just to get my first bite. It was one tiny scoop in this cavern. Cones should have ice cream piled on top. At the price point they charge it should be piled on here also. The cup? I swear I thought they were handing me a sample. Im not kidding. When she started ringing it up I looked around and realized these were actually the cups everyone had and I proceeded to pay 15 bucks for maybe a quarter pint in total for all three servings. Quarter pints btw are what cups are in most ice cream places and are one serving. Here it would make three! So I turned and asked my gf if there was some world wide shortage on ice cream I wasn't aware of? We laughed and we left. We parked across the street and by the time I got to the car the two bites aka the cup were already gone. Wont go back.

Edited a few minutes later...I just read other reviews but more importantly the owner responses. I give you kudos for being involved and attentive. That alone change it from wont go back to might if im in the area. The place was fine other than the value and trust me altough it wanst much there was no chance any was left cause it was yummy. Worth giving it a shot if youre reading. Maybe im...