Photo courtesy The Sweet Xscape
The traditional ice cream truck is one of America’s most nostalgic businesses — a boxy, colorful van rolling slowly down the street with its iconic jingle, causing children to sprint from their houses, wads of cash and coins in hand that they pestered their parents to give them.
But modern trucks aren’t cruising Richmond neighborhoods quite the way they used to. Between kids spending less time outdoors, increasingly spread-out homes and rising costs, the classic neighborhood route model is fizzling out.
To keep the old industry alive, today’s operators are reinventing their business models around festivals, school visits, private events and social media.
Tierra McLaurin, a Richmond native and owner of water ice business The Sweet Xscape, prefers to let the market come to her, stationing her truck at various spots around the city and beckoning the masses with a simple social media post.
“Regardless of where I’m going, as long as I make a post on social media [and] it’s within their radius, they’re coming,” McLaurin says.
Water ice on board The Sweet Xscape food truck (Photo courtesy The Sweet Xscape)
She got her start in spring 2020, setting up shop out of the trunk of her 2008 Nissan Altima and struggling to keep up with a line of customers that stretched down the block. It wasn’t a childhood dream to be a water ice vendor, but in the aftermath of heartbreak and the city’s COVID-19 lockdown, she figured she may as well make the most of newfound free time and a spare $150.
While working a corporate job, she researched water ice and the feasibility of turning it into a business of her own.
McLaurin bought the flavored ice wholesale but added her own twist, cutting fresh fruit every morning and mixing in candies. Marketing solely through social media, she saw her up-and-coming business become an instant hit, usually selling out a day’s supply within two hours.
Demand quickly outgrew her car’s trunk.
After an official permitting process in 2021, she shifted production to Hatch Kitchen, a commissary kitchen for local food vendors, and reinvested her earnings into an old Frito-Lay truck. She had it gutted, revamped and wrapped with The Sweet Xscape’s logo.
Now a full-time gig, her workday starts at Hatch at 8 a.m. with inventory, fruit preparation and truck prep. By early afternoon, she’s off to the day’s location, where she parks the truck — now offering both water ice and frozen custard — and watches the crowds close in.
“I never thought it would go so far so fast,” McLaurin says.
Food incubator Hatch Kitchen is used by a number of ice cream-related ventures. (Photo courtesy Hatch Kitchen)
Cool Headquarters
Hatch Kitchen has become an unofficial home base for a handful of Richmond mobile ice cream vendors. Westray Paul and Chase Appich prep there, too, before their trucks head off to the day’s bookings.
Paul, founder of Westray’s Finest Ice Cream, finds the idea of cruising through neighborhoods aimless. His trucks’ schedules center around bookings and events.
Paul first entered the trade in New York City, scooping ice cream on a Van Leeuwen truck before learning to make it himself in the back of a Brooklyn shop. In 2015, he took a leap of faith by buying his own truck — an old newspaper van in San Francisco — and launching his business in Washington, D.C.
He purchased his second and third trucks from his former employer, Van Leeuwen, in summer 2019 — the same ones he had worked on. After repairs and a pandemic delay, Paul had assembled his fleet.
“You get to the point where you’re just kind of too far from shore to turn back, and then that just becomes who you are,” he says.
Chase Appich, owner of Jiji Frozen Custard along with his wife, Kendall, runs a similar model, forgoing specific routes for bookings — corporate events, private parties, teacher and nurse appreciation events, graduations, and the occasional construction site visit.
Owners of Jiji Frozen Custard, Chase and Kendall Appich (Photo courtesy Jiji Frozen Custard)
When the pair returned to Richmond in 2019 after a year of international travel, they wanted to build something their family could enjoy. Frozen custard — ice cream made with egg yolks — seemed like a hole in the market.
They scrapped the idea of a brick-and-mortar shop and went mobile instead, launching their own custard line made fresh and sold exclusively from their new-to-them ice cream truck.
“It was actually a prison laundry van,” Appich says. “They lost the keys to it.”
They later flipped a second truck from a closing business in Atlanta. Both are equipped with custard machines that churn and extrude fresh ribbons to order. Nothing is prepackaged.
For Appich, staffing the Jiji truck is one of the toughest challenges.
“This is a pretty technical mobile sundae shop,” Appich says. “You have to find someone with good food service experience, someone that can drive these trucks — they are heavy, and they’re older — and then they’re also making custard on the truck.”
Gelati Celesti has nearly a dozen locations in Richmond and Hampton Roads, in addition to an ice cream truck. (Photo courtesy Gelati Celesti)
The Cost of Staying Mobile
Tom Rosser, president of Gelati Celesti, says the addition of a company ice cream truck has been net positive — but not without a healthy dose of hustle behind it. With their truck recently hitting the 30-year mark, equipment failures are common, often at the least opportune times. Bad weather can also put a wrench in schedules.
Founded in 1984 by father-son duo John and Peter Edwards, Gelati Celesti operated primarily out of storefronts until Rosser’s family bought it in 2010, soon adding a decommissioned power truck to the roster.
Initially, the idea was for the truck to act as a rolling advertisement, occasionally attending large events such as RiverRock and the Richmond Folk Festival. But customers took a larger liking to it than anticipated, Rosser says, and it quickly took on a life of its own.
Besides the profit it generates, the brand awareness it has garnered over the years is “immeasurable,” he says.
Plus, it’s a good time.
“It’s fun to get out of the office every now and again,” Rosser says. “Especially when you catch that perfect weather day. It feels good, you have the windows open, everyone’s happy when you roll up.”
At Westray’s Finest, Paul doesn’t get too disgruntled about what’s out of his immediate control, such as lost business because of bad weather or equipment failures. After a while, he says, it just is what it is.
“At first, you’re like, ‘Oh, man, now I’m never going to be rich!’ But then, after a while, you’re just like, ‘This is a part of it,’” Paul says. “If you got mad about it forever, then you’d lose your mind.”
More Than a Sweet Treat
For McLaurin, the obstacles pale in comparison to what the mobile work provides: a creative outlet, human connection and community empowerment.
“The Sweet Xscape has taken me places where I’ve never thought anything would be able to take me,” McLaurin says. “I have 14 years in finances ... but this feels more like home because I get to do what I want to do: create stuff.”
She makes regular visits to local schools — many times without charge or a request for compensation. Teachers herd students toward the truck, where they hear McLaurin’s story, ask questions and enjoy frozen treats on the house.
“When you make those connections with the kids, it makes it worth it,” McLaurin says. “You just do it for the love. ... It’s sugar water — I can make that times whatever.”
As The Sweet Xscape’s brand continues to grow, McLaurin has her sights set on bigger cities with larger markets and more business opportunities, though the model will remain similar.
“I don’t plan on franchising. I don’t plan on putting my product in stores. I plan on being just like I am — out the truck,” McLaurin says.
Years ago, Paul did the opposite, moving his operation from D.C. back to Richmond, whose community-oriented market better fits his pace.
“Richmond is like a city that you can get your arms around,” Paul says. “[In D.C.], they don’t really care about you that much.”
Appich concurs. Between Richmond’s “small town vibe” and unique geography, the city has its business advantages.
“You can get everywhere quickly. You have a good presence of schools and corporations that allow us to thrive in the Richmond area, and you could take any other million-person [area] and you might not have the same success,” Appich says.
Despite intermittent issues with the current truck, Rosser is batting around the idea of adding a second truck to Gelati Celesti’s lineup. But whether he’s working with one or 10, his 5-year-old daughter still finds it fit for bragging rights.
“It’s pretty funny when people are chatting and [she] will sometimes chime in and be like, ‘My dad has an ice cream truck!’” Rosser says. “It’s fun being a business that literally everyone from age 2 to 99-plus just adores — that’s cool. That’s been really rewarding.”
While the ice cream truck scene doesn’t look exactly like it did in past decades, the vendors who keep it going aren’t slowing down anytime soon.
That is, of course, as long as their transmissions are in good shape.
