On a steamy evening at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, Jaime Cabal has a clientele in Mister Softee ice cream truck. He mixes milkshakes, soft vanilla-covered bowls with strawberries, and cones dipped in cherries and blue raspberry zest. One boy soon finished his dish rather than begging his parents for more, pointing to a menu window shaped like SpongeBob SquarePantsSonic the Hedgehog and Tweety.
Crowds like this are become rarer for ice cream suppliers nationwide like High fuel prices lead to inflationled some soft-service truck owners to question the future of their business.
Owning an ice cream truck used to be a lucrative proposition, but for some, the cost has become incalculable: The diesel engines that power the trucks have run up to $7 a gallon, vanilla ice cream costs $13 a gallon, and a 25-pound sprinkler now costs about $60, double what it cost a year ago.
Many vendors say the end of the years-long ice cream truck era. Even the garages that house these trucks are growing, renting out to other food trucks as the number of ice cream trucks dwindles.
Parks, pools, and residential streets used to be the main territory of ice cream sellers. But now, more often than not, the jingle of a soft serve truck sounds out to a crowd no one knows for the price of certain cones with add-ons like swirling ice cream and hot sauce. she yells up to $8 on some trucks.
Although no organization seems to give an exact figure for how many ice cream trucks are currently operating the streets of New York City, some owners say they may be leaving the company. business in the next few years. Steve Christensen, CEO of North American Ice Cream Association.
The ice cream van, he said, is “unfortunately a thing of the past”.
New distribution methods, through third-party apps or ghost kitchens, are on the rise. Traditional spoon shops are focusing on providing an enjoyable experience and serving up more flavors than a traditional ice cream van, he said, driving lines away from these vehicles.
“It was horrible,” said Mr. Cabal, an ice cream vendor in Queens who has worked on ice cream trucks for the past nine years. Inflation has even increased the cost of mechanical parts for trucks. Last year, when his slurry machine broke down, a part he needed cost $1,600. He decided to wait a few more months to fix it, but part of the cost nearly doubled, to $3,000. Now, slushy is out of the menu and the machine is in his garage.
In 2018, Mr. Cabal thought the Flushing Meadows Corona Park business would be good enough to support his own truck, so he sold his New Jersey home for $380,000, moved to Hicksville, NY and purchased the Mister Softee franchise. He won a contract with the city to operate in the park.
Although he has to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year for that license and others, Mr. Cabal competes with unlicensed vendors selling fruit, empanadas and Duro wheels from baby strollers. and even ice cream from the cart was placed around his truck. He said they undercut him so much that he couldn’t compete.
In Lower Manhattan, Ramon Pacheco is grappling with his recent decision to raise prices by 50 cents to address some of his increased daily expenses, like $80 in gas ($15 before the pandemic) and $40 dollars diesel, ($18 before). He now pays about $41 for three gallons of vanilla ice cream that he previously costed $27.
He’s been selling ice cream for 27 years, and since the pandemic hit, he says he’s noticed a drop in demand. Now, he only makes at least $200, excluding expenses, selling ice cream in nine hours. Sometimes, if a patron comes to him with $2 for ice cream, he will just sell at a loss.
“I’m 66 years old and I’m tired,” Mr Pacheco said in Spanish, adding that he is thinking of selling his truck next year.
Carlos Cutz decided to leave his job at a food court two years ago to work on an ice cream truck to support himself, his wife and their three children. He took out a loan and bought a truck of his own in May.
The man who bought the ice cream he bought had a route in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Mr. Cutz resisted the price increase to stay away from his customer base, even though his costs have doubled for the products. product like package 250 cone cake.
“These have been the worst years for ice cream trucks,” he said in Spanish, adding, “I will do my best to continue with this business. I’m raising my family, and I can’t leave a business I haven’t tried. “
Gasoline prices have been the most shocking expense in recent months for Andrew Miscioscia, owner of Andy’s Italian Ices NYC operates three vans for private catering events. He spent $6,800 in June on gas alone. Mr. Miscioscia has turned to catering during the pandemic as sales slump on the Upper West Side.
“People don’t go out like before,” he said. “And there’s a lot of competition out there.”
However, the appearance of an ice cream truck on a hot summer day still makes many people nervous. At Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Domenica Chumbi, of Hillside, NJ, holds a vanilla cone dipped in cherry peel to photograph her quinceañera. The pastel pink ice cream not only matches her outfit and the cherry blossom theme of her party, but it also brings back memories of childhood park visits.
“It’s something that reminds me of New York,” she said.
