I’d guess that most ice cream dudes have (probably crap) day jobs and just need some extra cash every week. There aren’t a lot of (even minimum wage) jobs that’ll schedule you for just 6-10 hours/wk. Probably one of the least annoying ways of earning an extra $50 a week.
My question: is it federal law that all ice cream trucks play Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer?
That and that goofy tune from the old Farmer Vic show. Da doo doo da doo da da da da doo, doo da doo da doo…!:eek:GAH!:smack: That tune get’s stuck in my head for hours after they pass by!
And do they have to play them so Gd damn loud? I don’t need to know that the dilly wagon is 20 blocks away! Some of them actually drown out the sound of a siren from a police car that’s in the same vicinity! Some municipalities around here passed ordinances regulating ice cream truck speakers. GOOD!
Well, the intensity of the sound drops off as the square of the distance away from the truck, so you really need to crank it up to reach that last bit of the neighborhood where you might tempt a kid to come running and make you break even or go ahead for the day. I’d suggest marketing a mosquito siren, but as pkbites said, adults make up a pretty good share of the sales, I’m sure.
-Tofer
How about the Mexican ice cream carts?
When I lived in Denver, every night a Hispanic man would walk down the street, pushing a two-wheeled cart, accompanied by the sound of jingling bells, and emblazoned with hand-pained images of ice cream cones and Good Humor bars. Every ten seconds or so, the cart pusher would bellow a grainy “EHHHHHHH!” I NEVER, repeat NEVER saw anyone buy anything from one of the Mexican ice cream carts, anywhere I saw them.
Dunno about the profit margin, but the ice cream truck has a profound effect on children. My kids have practically become a cargo cult for the ice cream truck because one came to our block once.
The Coco Helado trucks in The Bronx and elsewhere in NYC seemed to do fine.
They do very well here on the north side of Chicago. La Monarca Paleteria on Clark Street is the hub of the carts - they rent the carts, both the push kind and the bicycle kind, and sell the ice cream. If I (an English only speaking white chick) go into the store, I can get a dozen bars for around $8. I’m sure it’s a bit cheaper for a Hispanic guy also renting a cart and getting more than a dozen bars. They sell them off the carts for a buck a bar, last I knew.
They have the cleanest store I’ve ever seen. Seriously, I would consider getting pierced or having minor surgery performed in there. Their bars are so yummy, and tend to the fruit end of the confection spectrum - mango, banana, guava, coconut (with real coconut!) leche, that sort of thing.
The jangly tune that is indelibly associated in my mind with ice-cream vans and hot childhood summers is Greensleeves.
We still have an ice-cream van (note: not “truck”) come round our way, and the driver clearly has a pathological hatred of children. Good choice of job, fella! (Although thinking about it, the hatred may not have existed before he took the job…)
The Mexican ice cream carts do well around Houston as well – they are based around La Paleteria near Bellaire and Renwick. Again, like WhyNot, that store is immaculately clean and sells good mixed fruit/yogurt/honey concoctions that I used to get and try to shove in my daughter while she was dribbling strawberry paleta all over herself. Their mango, tres leches, and vanilla/raisin paletas are my favorites, though.
The ice cream trucks around here play “It’s a Small World”.
That sounds like the paleta dude! We had one that would often circle the block off of east Riverside Dr here in Austin when I was in college. It was a bit hit & miss, since he spoke little English and I spoke no Spanish, and the illustration on the wrappers were less than helpful, but I did get some good strawberry-ish bars, and plenty of other flavors that almost always tasted a bit banana-y. There’s now a store in a strip mall near where I live now that sells paletas, all nicely labelled in both languages. Kinda takes the adventure out of it, though.
My new favorite frozen mexican treat, though, are respas. They’re basically shaved ice, and vastly superior to a mere snocone.