The enduring allure of the ice cream truck

A CHILDHOOD DREAM For Kim Tonte, who works part time on her brother's ice cream truck in Lehman Township, Pennsylvania, the family business has all of them fondly remembering the past

and helping younger generations get a taste of it. They converted a milk delivery truck into The Ice Cream Truck 1961, one of two trucks they operate. Tonte spends her days working at a bank

and her free time selling frozen treats. She likes interactions with ice cream lovers so much she considers it a hobby. "It's actually my brother's business,” Tonte says.

“When he was a little boy, we lived in town, and the ice cream truck would come around, and he'd always go running for it. So, it was one of his childhood dreams." The one thing

ice cream truck driver Jim Malin remembers about the ice cream trucks of his youth is that his parents would never let him buy any. Today, he has as much ice cream as he'd ever want.

Courtesy of Jim Malin Malin, owner of Jim's Ice Cream Truck in Stratford, Connecticut, likes that his job allows him to be his own boss and make people happy, no matter their age.

"It's funny because the older crowd, I can guess which ice creams they're going to get,” he says. “The young kids, you know, they want all these crazy ice creams. Whereas the

older people like a Creamsicle, that's one of their favorites, for the ones who are like 70 or 80. And the ones in their 50s, they get toasted almond. I can just guess what they'll

get by their age." THE ORIGINAL UBER EATS The ice cream truck world hasn't gotten any more competitive in the age of COVID-19, but it has been challenging to find a business model

that works amid masks, social distancing and the brave new world of 2020, says Pietsch. At the start of the pandemic, he started letting people text or call in their orders and pay via

Venmo, a mobile payment app. Then he'd deliver them in paper bags to their porches. "I had grandmas and grandpas contacting me, ‘Hey, can you send ice cream to my grandkids?’ “ he

says. And he'd deliver them with sweet notes saying, ‘From Grandma,’ ‘From Pop-Pop.’ He even set up a way for people to donate treats to frontline COVID-19 workers. All of the little

gestures of $2 and $3 ice creams have added up to a lot of good will. "I'm a ‘townie,’ “ Pietsch says. “I teach at my high school that I graduated from. And so, the funny joke that

I tell people is, ‘I never got far in life. I live in the same house and I work at the same high school now.’ “ He's driven his ice cream truck for 14 years. And when the summer is

over, his customers can't wait for him to come back.