TIMELINE

1934

Irving Wolff, whose family owns Ye Olde Cape Codder restaurant in Centerville, Massachusetts, decides to open an ice cream store in the quaint Cape Cod village. His friend, Boston insurance man William Wells Wilberforth Watson, agrees to financially back the parlor.

1936

Wolff approaches Watson with a $600 debt after running the Four Seas Dairy Bar for two years. Watson decides to come down to Cape Cod in the summers to try his hand at running the store, which becomes very successful under his management.

1938

Watson purchases the Four Seas property and business for $6,500. In the next two decades, Four Seas begins to establish itself as one of the most well-known ice cream stores in the region.

WORLD WAR II

During the war, though many foods were rationed, ice cream was deemed a necessity to keep American happiness from failing. So Four Seas stayed open, usually opening by noon and running out of ice cream by four o’clock.

1954

Georgia Swift, a high school sophomore, begins working at Four Seas behind the counter.

1956

Boston University student Richard Warren finds a job listing for a Four Seas Ice Cream managerial position and accepts the job.

1957

Georgia Swift and Richard Warren marry. That same year, they move full time to Cape Cod, where Richard begins teaching full time at Barnstable High School in Hyannis.

1958–63

The Warrens’ three children are born: Janice in 1958, Randy in 1961 and current owner Douglas Warren in 1963. The children spend much of their early years in a playpen in the sandwich kitchen at Four Seas.

1959

Four Seas closes the breakfast portion of the store. In the same year, Georgia and Richard Warren begin discussing the purchase of Four Seas Ice Cream with its original owner, W. Wells Watson.

1960

The Warrens officially purchase Four Seas Ice Cream from Watson.

1960s

With the election of John F. Kennedy as president of the United States, the Kennedy family and their fairy-tale “Camelot” story become the focus of Americans’ attention. With their notoriety comes fame for Four Seas, one of their favorite summertime stops during their time at their Hyannisport compound.

1980

Georgia and Richard Warren separate. The family considers it the end of early thoughts of expanding to a second store.

1982

Richard Warren and Linda Joyal meet on a New Hampshire golf course.

1983

Randy Warren, son of Richard Warren, dies at age twenty-two in a car accident during spring break in Florida. The Warren family names a scholarship fund for local high school students the Randall Mark Warren Scholarship Fund in his honor and dedicates one day per year to raising money for the fund.

1984

Richard Warren and Linda Joyal marry at the top of a ski slope in New Hampshire. Linda takes over bookkeeping for the store and continued the job until just a few years ago.

1987

Four Seas holds its first-ever employee alumni reunion on Cape Cod. Of 133 alumni invited to the event, 129 and their spouses attended. It was one of Richard Warren’s favorite memories of Four Seas.

1988

After fifteen years as a teacher and fifteen more as a guidance counselor, Richard Warren retires from Barnstable High School.

1988

Doug Warren moves to Yarmouth, Maine, and then Bowdoinham, Maine, and soon after begins working at legendary Haven’s Candies, where he learns how to make chocolates and other candies. Decades later, he uses this knowledge to create unique ice cream flavors for Four Seas.

1999

After running a restaurant in Las Vegas, Nevada, Doug Warren moves with Peggy Wysocki back to Centerville to begin taking over Four Seas Ice Cream. They marry that September on Craigville Beach, just a quarter-mile from Four Seas.

2006

Richard Warren publishes The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Homemade Ice Cream, which features many Four Seas flavors adapted for home ice cream makers, including the signature penuche pecan and fresh peach flavors.

2008

In January, Richard Warren, age seventy-two, dies in a skiing accident at Attitash Mountain in New Hampshire.

2009

Four Seas celebrates its seventy-fifth anniversary with a summer-long schedule of events, including days for local and national celebrities to scoop, a We Scoop for Chief alumni night to raise money for the Randall Mark Warren Scholarship Fund, a Cape Cod Ice Cream Idol contest for a new Four Seas flavor and new flavors every week.