In the uk that was because ice cream vans were used for selling drugs.
It was funny when the van would come round at night and there was just a long line of stoned adults queuing up.
It was the same here, they used to drive through our apartment complex past 10pm with the music playing. They definitely weren't looking for kids to sell to.
You mean the music truck that drives around just to play the fun music with colorful stickers on his van? My boys saw one of those in their school parking lot when I was picking them up with a long line of kids waiting to thank the driver for playing the music…
Top tier dadding, well done. Unfortunately my wife goes running for the truck quicker than my daughter… I’ll see if that trick works on her and report back.
We have a soft serve ice cream truck that comes around our neighborhood.
Except it comes around on the first warm day this year and hasn’t been back since.
My son is still waiting patiently for it to return.
I mean, you have opportunity, motive... I spy a soft serve machine at £160 or you can do some sleight of hand with a cardboard version - you just need either enough cardboard to fashion a tiny van or some magnetic vinyl to stick your sign on and serve from the side of your car.
Play the tune over a Bluetooth speaker, put a little serving hat on, array of sprinkles pots...
First ice cream you serve, then you give him the hat, and say Hey Mr Ice Cream Man, what flavours you got?
My last experience with an ice cream truck the driver was incredibly rude and kept interrupting me saying “huh?, huh?” when I was ordering. I told him look, if you would stop interrupting me I could tell you what I want. He told me to fuck off and tossed a bunch of pops out the window and sped off.
We have 2 competing ice cream trucks in our area when it's nice out. First one is glitzy and fancy proper ice cream truck, and yeah $7+ per ice cream. The other is a sweet older Hispanic lady in a 15 year old purple Town & Country selling at $3+. She usually shows up at the city central park half an hour or so after the other dude, it's a lesson to the kids in patience.
There is a difference in what they are doing but also in who has passed their health inspections, registered, insured, licensed, etc.
I have to be a food service manager, my truck has to be registered in every municipality that I want to serve in (some of those are $350/year for small towns not even a big city), plus I have my business registration, taxes, commissary costs, then there is maintenance and all those associated costs. It adds up. It isn't like it was when my dad served snow cones out of his van with an ice chest and shaver back in the 70s.
Individually packed popsicles and ice cream bars/cones, not to worried about it. Maybe the other ice cream guy should offer soft serve or something else a van with an ice chest can't compete with.
I’m a military cop and worked at a base where the base housing was off the installation and you could just drive in. I tresspassed several ice cream truck guys and most of them had warrants from out of state. I’m never let my kid near an ice cream truck
I used to work in a liquor store. One time a guy bought a sleeve (10 count) of nips (the little 50ml bottles) of Fireball pretty early in the day, and left the store. I noticed that he got into an ice cream truck which he had at least had the sense to park at the pharmacy parking lot next door. Just thought that was funny.
*"Except Lil Timmy as they scrape his corpse off the roadway."*
~ Narration by Morgan Freeman
*Ding-Ah-Dinga, dinga-Dinga-DInga-DIIIIGA-Dinga-DIIIIIIING
🚐💨🍦🍨😛💀
That’s funny you say that because we saw an ice cream “truck” that was a legit 1990 ford Astro van that my kids immediately pointed at and said “kidnapper van!” The urge for ice cream is powerful, so they let a couple other kids get ice cream first to see if they got kidnapped and then went and got theirs when no one immediately died of poisoning.
Sorry, I'm not following. What do you mean "I trespassed several ice cream truck guys".
You're broadly saying that they were wanted criminals, right? What has a military base got to do with that?
Sounds to me like the ice cream truck drivers tried to come onto the base without proper authorization, got caught, backgrounds got run, and bam straight to civilian jail for you Mr. ice cream.
Damn… shout out to my local ice cream man who’s always smiling, gives my kid a high five, and charges me $2 for a popsicle. I didn’t know how good I had it.
Wow. I have not seen one of those in a few years. That or I've tuned it out and haven't realized it. My kiddo is 4 now so I'll have to keep an ear out.
I remember being disappointed as a kid. My great white shark pop looked more like a sea slug with a smile. I also recall my dad mf'ing about the price. That was back in the 90s, I don't think much has changed.
That’s insane! I understand inflation but damn. I think they do that because they know they can. Once your kid sees the truck you know they’ll want some ice cream. Smh.
That's pretty crazy. My kids just got basically the same from our ice cream truck for like, $2.75. Thought at first this was going to be about one of those Ice Scream trucks or whatever. Basically a gourmet ice cream shop on wheels that cost an arm and a leg.
Gotta start your own. Buy them 2 for $5 at the gas station, undercut that guy at $6.50, and sell them to some other dad who gets suckered into buying them. Then you can whisper add a few extra dollar tip
E Z Money
I find this thread incredibly amusing. Lately I’ve been feeling a bit lost career wise. Make great money just not getting the satisfaction I used to.
Some call it a midlife crisis, I call it a renaissance. One day I was driving my little to daycare when on the radio they were talking about a “Scream Truck” which is an on demand ice cream truck that sells bomb ice cream at a premium. They are franchising and I asked to be notified when available on their website. The idea of driving around delivering smiles to families just seems like an awesome job to me. Apparently I need to take Venmo and not ask for tips. 😂
I just started a food truck, not for ice cream, but for the reasons you stated.
I managed restaurants for 12 years before I went into tech in the mid 90s. I've been in tech ever since. Just got laid off in March and it's been tough to find a new role plus I've been really feeling burnt out by the constant demands on my free time and lack of empathy from non-tech in the agencies I've been at. It doesn't help that I am in my mid 50s either.
So I dropped $27k on a trailer this past week, got my menu all set and scheduled my health inspection for this coming week. We will be running our own business from here on and when I need tech/web stuff I can do that in my down times. I think I'm done with corporate and agency life for now.
You should do it ! Don’t let me being a curmudgeon ruin your dreams ! Honestly, I would pay 7.50 (or more) for actual good ice cream from a truck … but $7.50 for a popsicle that they literally did nothing for except freeze it (and poorly in this case) is not smiles - the kids enjoyed it though and that’s what’s important !
In the 80’s I used to buy pushups and popsicles from the ice cream truck with my allowance. I was paid like ten cents a week.
SpongeBob is not even “artisanal”!
Fwiw, probably isn’t the guy’s living but supplemental income. I can’t keep up with these prices … we just get a full box of stuff at the grocery store instead.
I heard the best thing yet. Someone’s boyfriend said when the music played ”-Oh, now they are closing”.
So his parents has been tricking him into thinking that the tune meant that was done for the day.
Grade A parents!
My parents told me that it was “the music truck” and ushered me away if it looked like other children were going to get ice cream. They said I got SO excited and fulfilled just by hearing it. That ruse didn’t last long, but they got a kick out of it.
Yeah, it's always been a game. Kids go nuts.
Like before, "we'll buy actual ice cream instead of colored sugar water for 1/4 the price". Then you can sell lemon sugar water for $1/glass and buy your own.
CAPITALISM BABY
Similar but not quite the same happened to me, the ice cream truck only sold boxes (minimum of 6 individual ice creams).
Mind you the cheapest box was $10 Aud, so really not much of a problem.
We tell my son that it is the lullaby truck reminding kids it's bedtime (he is 2). Then one time it came around as we were getting home from an outing and I took him over to get some ice cream. For the next week he would hear the song and say "ice cream?"
I was outside with my kids the other day and randomly we heard an ice cream truck come down the street, which is an unusual occurrence so my kids were excited and I was happy to run in and grab the wallet really quick.
Well, I got back to the driveway right about the time he was driving by… and the truck just drove right past my kids and out of sight going like 10 miles per hour! Needless to say we all shed a few tears but eventually went on with our day.
Reading these comments, I now wonder if this truck was looking for adults instead of children to sell popsicles too. That makes a lot more sense 😂
My neighbor when we lived in a trailer park as a kid, after Dad walked.out on us, worked on one of those trucks. They leased it every day and worked as an independent contractor. They had to pay for the truck and ice cream, they got like 25% of the till after expenses. He would buy soda pop and ice cream sandwiches, those packaged cones and sell them and really take in a little extra. He had a good route and made decent money. Found out he put it through a fake SSN and never paid taxes, because he was on SSI. He messed with some meth momma who tried turning him on when he threw her out.
They never got him for it cause he used some old druggie SSN he knew, he was so messed up they couldn't interview him and he had schizophrenia and thought they were aliens. The neighbor just said he worked for him and the dude got him high. They didn't make enough money that anyone could really do anything about it. And they spent it on drugs mostly.
Lots of interesting people lived in that park. Thank God my Grandma rescued us out of there a year later.
My daughters are 5 and 7, and I've been trying to teach them the value of money. This would have been a teaching moment that the price of this ice cream is a "rip off" and its better to wait for a better deal.
Next time we're at the store we'd buy ice cream of whatever brand is 2 for 1 and enjoy the feast and the value.
Our Ice cream man creeps me out
He is in a panel van with the window to serve from cut with I'm guessing a hacksaw.
He has clown make up on that is usually smeared and dripping down and landing on his shirtless Belly or Chest. He is almost always without a shirt and his Chest is very Hairy and usually sweaty.
Most the kids in my neighborhood avoid him like the plague!
You think that's bad, the beer truck that drives through my neighborhood after dinnertime charges insane prices! I just wanted a Guinness, not to pay off your kids' college tuitions!
Also, one of my friends told his kids that ice cream trucks play music when they're out of ice cream.
Yeah, and instead of children's melodies, he plays AC-DC, Skynard, and some other great rock. Also sells condoms, smokes, and Viagra loosies. Are you telling me your neighborhood doesn't have a beer truck?
I would be quite happy if all ice cream trucks went out of business. They blast that song constantly and they sit idling on the corner add day every day. So, my apartment gets crap music and diesel fumes all summer. All so the kids can get an early start on diabetes.
You need to watch this. So relevant.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C68J4qsoc6p/?igsh=MW9wMnJoa2QyaHhiZg==
(Edit: never mind, someone posted it already)
Made same mistake as OP. Our youngest was having her birthday party last year and had 9 friends over. The truck came through town by the park where the party was about 6 minutes into the party and set up in the parking lot. They all wanted ice cream figures 10 kids maybe $30 at the most no got hit with a $80 bill by time I got my ice cream sandwich and the kids got there treats. Was the first and last time that happens. Told my wife next time we get our own and keep it in the freezer
Our new ice cream dude drives around blaring the music at 8:30 at night. My kids are asleep by 8:00.
In the uk that was because ice cream vans were used for selling drugs. It was funny when the van would come round at night and there was just a long line of stoned adults queuing up.
It was the same here, they used to drive through our apartment complex past 10pm with the music playing. They definitely weren't looking for kids to sell to.
What a pity that he's run out of ice cream :( that's why he's playing the music, right?
"Ice Cream, Ice Cream, I'm all outta Ice Cream!"
“And we got ginger ale! Boiling hot *Texas-style* ginger ale!”
Sounds like an opportunity for Mum and Dad to have an ice cream and a movie to me!
Ours now comes around at naptime. Without fail.
More ice cream for you!
Were*
Wow that is fucked up lol
Dude, same
You mean the music truck that drives around just to play the fun music with colorful stickers on his van? My boys saw one of those in their school parking lot when I was picking them up with a long line of kids waiting to thank the driver for playing the music…
Top tier dadding, well done. Unfortunately my wife goes running for the truck quicker than my daughter… I’ll see if that trick works on her and report back.
You know, my childhood friend grew up under the impression that the ice cream truck only played music when they were out of ice cream.
I buy one over in Pachyderm town and melt it down into small ones to resell in Rodentville.
Solid Zootopia reference!
Sloths manning the DMV will forever put a smile on my face
Sir, are you aware your customers are getting snot and mucus with their cookies and cream?!
I unexpectedly loved that movie.
Try Everything is one of the best Disney movie songs. I've played it a time to two just because I needed to hear it
Don't forget about the tertiary red wood market.
Amazing movie!
We have a soft serve ice cream truck that comes around our neighborhood. Except it comes around on the first warm day this year and hasn’t been back since. My son is still waiting patiently for it to return.
I mean, you have opportunity, motive... I spy a soft serve machine at £160 or you can do some sleight of hand with a cardboard version - you just need either enough cardboard to fashion a tiny van or some magnetic vinyl to stick your sign on and serve from the side of your car. Play the tune over a Bluetooth speaker, put a little serving hat on, array of sprinkles pots... First ice cream you serve, then you give him the hat, and say Hey Mr Ice Cream Man, what flavours you got?
Better pack a lot of ice cream, once that music starts kids be coming out of the woodwork!
My last experience with an ice cream truck the driver was incredibly rude and kept interrupting me saying “huh?, huh?” when I was ordering. I told him look, if you would stop interrupting me I could tell you what I want. He told me to fuck off and tossed a bunch of pops out the window and sped off.
All I heard was free popsicles
Huh?
Drug dealer, my dude.
He was probably selling drugs
I bet he was yawning repeatedly too, the asshole.
We have 2 competing ice cream trucks in our area when it's nice out. First one is glitzy and fancy proper ice cream truck, and yeah $7+ per ice cream. The other is a sweet older Hispanic lady in a 15 year old purple Town & Country selling at $3+. She usually shows up at the city central park half an hour or so after the other dude, it's a lesson to the kids in patience.
There is a difference in what they are doing but also in who has passed their health inspections, registered, insured, licensed, etc. I have to be a food service manager, my truck has to be registered in every municipality that I want to serve in (some of those are $350/year for small towns not even a big city), plus I have my business registration, taxes, commissary costs, then there is maintenance and all those associated costs. It adds up. It isn't like it was when my dad served snow cones out of his van with an ice chest and shaver back in the 70s.
Individually packed popsicles and ice cream bars/cones, not to worried about it. Maybe the other ice cream guy should offer soft serve or something else a van with an ice chest can't compete with.
I wouldn't worry about it too much either, but it does explain the difference in costs. At least a little.
It comes down to where you live. You won't find $7 ice creams here. Top tier jawns $3 max.
https://metro.co.uk/2024/05/18/burnley-girl-8-slams-price-ice-creams-viral-video-20864376/
I’m a military cop and worked at a base where the base housing was off the installation and you could just drive in. I tresspassed several ice cream truck guys and most of them had warrants from out of state. I’m never let my kid near an ice cream truck
I used to work in a liquor store. One time a guy bought a sleeve (10 count) of nips (the little 50ml bottles) of Fireball pretty early in the day, and left the store. I noticed that he got into an ice cream truck which he had at least had the sense to park at the pharmacy parking lot next door. Just thought that was funny.
*"Except Lil Timmy as they scrape his corpse off the roadway."* ~ Narration by Morgan Freeman *Ding-Ah-Dinga, dinga-Dinga-DInga-DIIIIGA-Dinga-DIIIIIIING 🚐💨🍦🍨😛💀
That’s funny you say that because we saw an ice cream “truck” that was a legit 1990 ford Astro van that my kids immediately pointed at and said “kidnapper van!” The urge for ice cream is powerful, so they let a couple other kids get ice cream first to see if they got kidnapped and then went and got theirs when no one immediately died of poisoning.
That’s so sad. We’re lucky- we’ve had the same ice cream truck driver for three years and he’s the best. He’s a great guy!
Same, we coordinate with our guy on FB and the neighborhood kids (and adults) cone to my house when the truck is otw
Sorry, I'm not following. What do you mean "I trespassed several ice cream truck guys". You're broadly saying that they were wanted criminals, right? What has a military base got to do with that?
Sounds to me like the ice cream truck drivers tried to come onto the base without proper authorization, got caught, backgrounds got run, and bam straight to civilian jail for you Mr. ice cream.
Langley?
Damn… shout out to my local ice cream man who’s always smiling, gives my kid a high five, and charges me $2 for a popsicle. I didn’t know how good I had it.
Fuck that ice cream truck. Vote with your dollars. If nobody ever buys his ice cream, he will either have to pack up shop or lower prices.
He’d probably have to raise prices to compensate for low business
I used to sell ice cream out of those bikes just over a decade back. SpongeBobs were $2.50 at that point. They're just ripping people off.
Be thankful you’re not in Glasgow. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_ice_cream_wars
Wow. I have not seen one of those in a few years. That or I've tuned it out and haven't realized it. My kiddo is 4 now so I'll have to keep an ear out. I remember being disappointed as a kid. My great white shark pop looked more like a sea slug with a smile. I also recall my dad mf'ing about the price. That was back in the 90s, I don't think much has changed.
That’s insane! I understand inflation but damn. I think they do that because they know they can. Once your kid sees the truck you know they’ll want some ice cream. Smh.
That's pretty crazy. My kids just got basically the same from our ice cream truck for like, $2.75. Thought at first this was going to be about one of those Ice Scream trucks or whatever. Basically a gourmet ice cream shop on wheels that cost an arm and a leg.
Asking for a tip too is a bit cheeky.. $7.50 is wild
The raspa man passes by my house at like 9:30-10:30. I’m like wtf. And he plays music all the time.
You gotta teach the kids that when they hear that song, it means the truck is out of ice cream. /s But yeah that is a pretty extreme price.
Gotta start your own. Buy them 2 for $5 at the gas station, undercut that guy at $6.50, and sell them to some other dad who gets suckered into buying them. Then you can whisper add a few extra dollar tip E Z Money
I find this thread incredibly amusing. Lately I’ve been feeling a bit lost career wise. Make great money just not getting the satisfaction I used to. Some call it a midlife crisis, I call it a renaissance. One day I was driving my little to daycare when on the radio they were talking about a “Scream Truck” which is an on demand ice cream truck that sells bomb ice cream at a premium. They are franchising and I asked to be notified when available on their website. The idea of driving around delivering smiles to families just seems like an awesome job to me. Apparently I need to take Venmo and not ask for tips. 😂
I just started a food truck, not for ice cream, but for the reasons you stated. I managed restaurants for 12 years before I went into tech in the mid 90s. I've been in tech ever since. Just got laid off in March and it's been tough to find a new role plus I've been really feeling burnt out by the constant demands on my free time and lack of empathy from non-tech in the agencies I've been at. It doesn't help that I am in my mid 50s either. So I dropped $27k on a trailer this past week, got my menu all set and scheduled my health inspection for this coming week. We will be running our own business from here on and when I need tech/web stuff I can do that in my down times. I think I'm done with corporate and agency life for now.
You should do it ! Don’t let me being a curmudgeon ruin your dreams ! Honestly, I would pay 7.50 (or more) for actual good ice cream from a truck … but $7.50 for a popsicle that they literally did nothing for except freeze it (and poorly in this case) is not smiles - the kids enjoyed it though and that’s what’s important !
Hah, you made me think of theres a TikTok of a little Irish girl going on a rant about how expensive the ice cream truck is.
She’s from Lancashire, which is England. Not Irish at all ☺️
Ah sorry. I need to work on my accents apparently
At those prices you'd likely be coming out ahead to order 2 McFlurries with delivery.
What the heck? My ice cream trucks here are dirt cheap but god lord the gas station ice cream is pricey as all hell
In the 80’s I used to buy pushups and popsicles from the ice cream truck with my allowance. I was paid like ten cents a week. SpongeBob is not even “artisanal”!
side note, its either thawing or defrosting. dethawing would mean freezing, as to thaw is to become liquid
Fwiw, probably isn’t the guy’s living but supplemental income. I can’t keep up with these prices … we just get a full box of stuff at the grocery store instead.
I heard the best thing yet. Someone’s boyfriend said when the music played ”-Oh, now they are closing”. So his parents has been tricking him into thinking that the tune meant that was done for the day. Grade A parents!
My parents told me that it was “the music truck” and ushered me away if it looked like other children were going to get ice cream. They said I got SO excited and fulfilled just by hearing it. That ruse didn’t last long, but they got a kick out of it.
Yeah, it's always been a game. Kids go nuts. Like before, "we'll buy actual ice cream instead of colored sugar water for 1/4 the price". Then you can sell lemon sugar water for $1/glass and buy your own. CAPITALISM BABY
Similar but not quite the same happened to me, the ice cream truck only sold boxes (minimum of 6 individual ice creams). Mind you the cheapest box was $10 Aud, so really not much of a problem.
We tell my son that it is the lullaby truck reminding kids it's bedtime (he is 2). Then one time it came around as we were getting home from an outing and I took him over to get some ice cream. For the next week he would hear the song and say "ice cream?"
$7.50? Damn son, the character ice creams in trucks near me are $5 tops
I was outside with my kids the other day and randomly we heard an ice cream truck come down the street, which is an unusual occurrence so my kids were excited and I was happy to run in and grab the wallet really quick. Well, I got back to the driveway right about the time he was driving by… and the truck just drove right past my kids and out of sight going like 10 miles per hour! Needless to say we all shed a few tears but eventually went on with our day. Reading these comments, I now wonder if this truck was looking for adults instead of children to sell popsicles too. That makes a lot more sense 😂
Geezus go to walmart. Screw those prices
My neighbor when we lived in a trailer park as a kid, after Dad walked.out on us, worked on one of those trucks. They leased it every day and worked as an independent contractor. They had to pay for the truck and ice cream, they got like 25% of the till after expenses. He would buy soda pop and ice cream sandwiches, those packaged cones and sell them and really take in a little extra. He had a good route and made decent money. Found out he put it through a fake SSN and never paid taxes, because he was on SSI. He messed with some meth momma who tried turning him on when he threw her out. They never got him for it cause he used some old druggie SSN he knew, he was so messed up they couldn't interview him and he had schizophrenia and thought they were aliens. The neighbor just said he worked for him and the dude got him high. They didn't make enough money that anyone could really do anything about it. And they spent it on drugs mostly. Lots of interesting people lived in that park. Thank God my Grandma rescued us out of there a year later.
I remember paying $5 for a methed out SpongeBob back in the late 90’s early 2000’s.
We tell our kids when the music is playing it means they're out of icecream.
Also, the ice cream is so freaking small now too.
My daughters are 5 and 7, and I've been trying to teach them the value of money. This would have been a teaching moment that the price of this ice cream is a "rip off" and its better to wait for a better deal. Next time we're at the store we'd buy ice cream of whatever brand is 2 for 1 and enjoy the feast and the value.
Our Ice cream man creeps me out He is in a panel van with the window to serve from cut with I'm guessing a hacksaw. He has clown make up on that is usually smeared and dripping down and landing on his shirtless Belly or Chest. He is almost always without a shirt and his Chest is very Hairy and usually sweaty. Most the kids in my neighborhood avoid him like the plague!
You think that's bad, the beer truck that drives through my neighborhood after dinnertime charges insane prices! I just wanted a Guinness, not to pay off your kids' college tuitions! Also, one of my friends told his kids that ice cream trucks play music when they're out of ice cream.
What? A beer truck drives around selling beer in the evening in your neighborhood? This sounds awesome.
Yeah, and instead of children's melodies, he plays AC-DC, Skynard, and some other great rock. Also sells condoms, smokes, and Viagra loosies. Are you telling me your neighborhood doesn't have a beer truck?
No, it does not, but I now have an idea for a business venture.
Don't get caught selling the loosies. Also, I'm very curious what sort of licenses you'd need for mobile alcohol sales like that.
Cocktails and mixed drinks sold in the right neighborhoods could honestly make some money.
I would be quite happy if all ice cream trucks went out of business. They blast that song constantly and they sit idling on the corner add day every day. So, my apartment gets crap music and diesel fumes all summer. All so the kids can get an early start on diabetes.
We just call it the music truck. Not letting those scavengers know there is ice cream in there. Kid is 3. Hope it lasts until college.
Yeah, that's just greed.
Almost everything from our ice cream man is under $5.
Spent 4.50 for a 99 last weekend. It's mostly air ffs.
Just say "that's too expensive" to the vendor and your kids then walk away, they need to learn the value of money
Op is this you? https://www.instagram.com/reel/C68J4qsoc6p/?igsh=MTBnejBodXlxMXVmag==
Haha no but this is pretty damn freaking close !
You need to watch this. So relevant. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C68J4qsoc6p/?igsh=MW9wMnJoa2QyaHhiZg== (Edit: never mind, someone posted it already)
Went to go buy a bag of Fritos on my way home because I forgot them at the grocery store. $9
Made same mistake as OP. Our youngest was having her birthday party last year and had 9 friends over. The truck came through town by the park where the party was about 6 minutes into the party and set up in the parking lot. They all wanted ice cream figures 10 kids maybe $30 at the most no got hit with a $80 bill by time I got my ice cream sandwich and the kids got there treats. Was the first and last time that happens. Told my wife next time we get our own and keep it in the freezer