You’ve met the first few hires here and here and seen what it takes to get your paperwork in order to become a licensed mobile vendor, and where the trucks live. After the typical bureaucratic paperwork delays, today marks the official beginning of Softee season and for her last regular post, Miss Softee has some big time announcements. Take it away Miss Softee!

To all my kids,

I know you’ve been following the journey through paperwork and process to becoming a mobile food vendor, so to coincide with the official season opening (April 1ist), it is with great pride and pleasure that I bring you the RollingCones Softee team this season. To be honest, Mister Softee hasn’t always had the best reputation in Midtown and this year, that’s going to change!! We’re starting with a fleet of new drivers, all packing my signature special cones and tweeting their locations to the @RollingCones twitter account (which has been added to the ML Twitter Tracker), and ending with revised menus on all of our trucks. From now on, no matter what time of day you come to any of our trucks, it’s Happy Hour! All single cones come with any topping you want, even the special ones, for just $3. We’ll be scattered through the Midtown area, so for three big ones, you can always get your fix of the Potato Chip Chocolate Dip, Oatmeal Cookie, Cappuccino, Gimme S’more, and more!!

One more piece of news I hope you can understand and then onto a hilarious video… I won’t be driving full-time this year. While I will personally train each of the new drivers, (and good luck keeping me away from a truck for an entire season!), I’m going to be focusing the majority of my attention and time as an active Director and the Founder of the not-for-profit Chrissy’s Cooking Club in Brooklyn. We just launched our website and have some exciting events coming up with local food joints, food co-ops, and farmers markets in the Bushwick area. It’s truly been a pleasure serving as Miss Softee and you certainly haven’t seen the last of my smile from the window of an ice cream truck!! ;)

Some of the new RollingCones team are featured in this video… watch as they step inside an ice cream truck for the first time and try to make some cones!! And, if you’re working and trying not to draw attention to yourself surfing the internet, this video will cause laughter… don’t say I didn’t warn you!

<3,
Miss Softee

Soo… just a quick recap on what’s already happened in the process to becoming a licensed mobile food vendor (MFV). These candidates have gone through the application and interviews, reference checks, they’ve  registered to take the MFV food safety class, applied for their tax paperwork, took the actual MFV class, and finally the day has come that they have all the paperwork necessary to head down to the Department of Health and Consumer Affairs down by Wall Street and apply to be mobile food vendors!!  Every time a potential RollingCone hire calls me to say that their paperwork is in and they’re ready to apply, I swear, you can hear the 5 year old kid in their voice because they’re that much closer to becoming an ice cream vendor. (And the whole process is a huge pain the ass!) This is a true labor of love, kids.

Just like every government agency, you show up and the first thing you do is take a number. They’ve actually been moving through the masses pretty quickly, and the earlier you get there, the better! This puts you in the queue to enter the somewhat confusing process of applying for the MFV license. One thing that I notice every time I’m in this office is that very few applicants go through the rigamarole alone. Pedicab drivers come in teams, just like when they’re zipping around 6th Avenue looking for fares, new Halal servers are escorted by the vets (for every new vendor, there’s an old vendor showing them the ropes.) I try to help guide the new ice cream workers as they come in.

But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing, the biggest frustration during the process isn’t the masses of paperwork , but the discrepancies in the application process. One woman had major issues because she uses a nickname, spelled slightly different from her Social Security card.  Another guy ran into a problem because his license was from Puerto Rico, and finally one other gentleman almost didn’t get his license because he had a laminated Social Security card. Now these people had no problem registering for the class, shelling out the fees, and spending the last two months going through the process to get to the application, but you just never know what issues you might have at the end until you show up to actually apply. Still, the team has been dedicated at getting it done!!

To end on an exciting note… this week we’re having a big training day at the depot and the whole team will be learning to drive, maintain, and serve from an ice cream truck!! Whoooo! Yes, there will be video.

Until next week, I leave you with this poem by Matt, in the style of the Night Before Christmas, about the experience of applying to become a mobile food vendor!

Four-Thirty Am, and all through my house.
Everyone’s sleeping, the cat, and my spouse.
Time to get ready, and head for the train.
Be there by 8, even with rain.

I got there on time, eight o’clock on the nose.
No money order cuz the newstand is closed.
The man doesn’t open until eight-fifteen.
The longest few minutes I’ve ever seen.

Finally done, the order in hand.
Up to floor five, on line I will stand.
I hope that I have all the stuff that they need,
Or this trip to Manhattan might suck wind indeed.

Oh No! A snafu! Frustration galore!
Notary please! The bottom-most floor.
When I returned, the line was quite short.
All things were easy for the clerk to sort.

Sitting there waiting to hear of my number.
Difficult not to be taken by slumber.
A very loud noise, a voice so alive!
My papers to be processed at window five!

They took all the money, and paperwork fine.
They processed it all, and took their sweet time.
When they were done it was like an elixer.
I stood very still to give them a picture.

On the way home, all said, and done.
It wasn’t so bad, but really quite fun.

Hey kids!! The RollingCones team has been busy applying for their badges (which we’ll tell you all about next week), but that hasn’t stopped the returning ice cream truck vets from hitting the streets along with this gorgeous weather!

And while you’ll recognize their faces, a few things are gonna be changing.  For one, our collective will be posting all of our locations to a single twitter account (@RollingCones) throughout the season and the commissary where our product is stocked is going to start carrying enough special toppings for all the trucks who want to roll out with my best sellers! That means potato chip chocolate dips, oatmeal cookie, and American cones (rainbow sprinkles and chocolate chip cookie crumbles). I will try to get some specials on the trucks for you kids starting next week. ;)

Sooo… if we’re not out working, and we’re not stalking the postal workers who are delivering our paperwork, what have we been so busy doing?? Getting the trucks out of hibernation and ready to go into the streets!!

Every ice cream truck you see in Manhattan goes through an even more grueling process than these vendors — two inspections (one for the truck itself and one for the soft serve machine), permitting, and then mechanical repairs and overhauls. Not to mention that the depot/commissary that they park in is subject to some intense scrutiny as well for its permits. So, what you don’t see is the rotating staff of mechanics, electricians, and cleaners all working day and night to get the fleet in tip-top shape by season opening!!

Since the RollingCones are still in the process of applying for their mobile food vending licenses, we’ll talk more about the process of applying to be a vendor next week and coming up after that — training day at the depot. If you’ve never seen the hilariousness of someone making a cone for the first time, you’re about to!! There will be video! Stay tuned in the on-going saga to open the ice cream season!

In the meantime, which specials from past seasons are you eager to see again?

<3 Miss Softee

Becoming a mobile food vendor isn’t just about coming up with a cool persona, finding awesome outfits to wear to work, or letting culinary creativity loose with awesome toppings… it’s a long process with many confusing steps along the way! Such a long process that even though we started with 20 total hires at the beginning of February, we’re already down to 16. It’s inevitable that people will drop off along the way, so most smart employers will tend to hire more people than they ultimately need. I can’t speak for every business, obviously, but here’s what a potential Mister Softee driver has to do to work in Midtown for the RollingCones.  (Yup, I’ve given us a new name!)

Step 1:
Register to take the Mobile Food Vendor (MFV) Food Protection Course. But, you can’t just do this online… that would make it too easy! You have to go in person to the Department of Health and wait in a queue with all of the vendors and anyone else who’s got business at the DOH and a $53 money order in hand just to sign up to take the class! (It’s a crap shoot if their credit card machine is actually working.)

And, when you do, they hand you a packet of information about the license and regulations more than 50 pages deep (printed front and back) that I’m pretty sure is intended to scare, intimidate, confuse, or otherwise dissuade you from continuing.

((((Waiting for your actual class date can be up to a month from the date you register. Meanwhile, start Step 2))))

Step 2:
Apply online for an Authority to Collect Sales Tax. Every vendor has to have this in order to make it to Step 4 (the actual license application). This induced multiple panicked calls from new hires, confused emails, and overall disdain. Thankfully, this one can be done online and once you get through all the questions and submit it you can…

((((wait some more for your tax paper to come in the mail — becoming good friends with your mail-person during this process))))

Step 3:
Take the MFV Class. This is supposed to last 8 hours, over two days, but the actual teaching time is more like 3 hours, with attendance taking over an hour and potty breaks sprinkled in for good measure. The curriculum is pretty basic, and if you have two brain cells and can kind-of rub them together, you will probably pass the final exam! It’s nothing like the more rigorous Food Protection Course most licensed food safety handlers go through. This week the RollingCones went through this process, so I’ll elaborate a little more…

First off, you hike up to the Central Harlem Health Center, where your class actually turns out to be held in a dusty nondescript basement you can only get into from the back entrance of the building.

Once in the classroom, there are props…

a food cart…

and a course book riddled with sometimes funny…

sometimes creepy illustrations. The curriculum covers proper hygiene and hand washing techniques, temperatures to cook food to, and parking restrictions imposed by the city.

The class was male dominated, as is much of the mobile food vending industry. But, they are a true cultural melting pot, with the workbook being offered in more than seven languages, the minorities in the room were clearly the majority.

I spoke with one man who was taking the class to work a Halal cart in Midtown, having come from Egypt just a few months ago to the US, but unable to transfer his school credits, and therefore his work title. Do you know what he did in Egypt?? He was a reporter for a major press outlet with a Masters Degree in Journalism and a basketball championship under his belt. But I digress…

Once you’re done with the class, there is a 15 question test, which, in it’s simplicity, almost seems like a bad joke. (Like, there are pictures and true/false questions about the importance of bathing daily.) Once passed, you receive an official letter which must be guarded with it’s life before…

Step 4:
Actually applying to be a Mobile Food Vendor!! The process for this goes on… but more about that next week! So, stay tuned as the RollingCones get moving and each step of the way, get closer to actually becoming licensed Mobile Food Vendors serving for ya’ll!!

Until then,
<3 Miss Softee

Related:
Midtown’s Next Mister Softee Part One
Midtown’s Next Mister Softee Part Two

The turf wars between ice cream truck drivers in Midtown is legendary, and we’ve stumbled upon the aftermath of more than one “encounter”. But this could be the first time a brawl between a Mister Softee vendor and a rival ice cream truck vendor has been caught on video.  Mister Softee CEO Jim Conway is pretty good about pointing out when bad generic ice cream trucks are mis-identified as official Mister Softee vendors… but it looks like he’s going to have a tough time denying this one (the instigator was clearly identified as a Mister Softee truck.)  Super curious to see what they do to the vendor in the video (if anything).  Check out the video for yourself>>

Related:
Cops Cracking Down on Softee Trucks After “Altercation”
Rule #1 of Vendor Fight Club is You Don’t Talk About Vendor Fight Club

With all the turf war controversy surrounding Mister Softee trucks, we’ve always imagined Softee President Jim Conway as some kind of soft serve puppet master, holed up in his Jersey lair ruling the summer streets of NYC with a iron fist.  Nope.  Saw him on Fox Business channel last week, and he looks like… well… the owner of a large (and extremely professional) ice cream company.  Miss Softee makes an appearance in the background, and Conway goes into some interesting business facts about Mister Softee- including the fact that the hours are long, and many of their franchises are owned by immigrants from South America, Eastern Europe and West Africa.

Check out the video after the jump…

Related:
News Flash: New Street Vendors Are Finding It Difficult to Make Money

Fights between trucks is nothing new, but fighting with a cop? That’s kind of crazy. The rumors swirling around Midtown today is that on Tuesday an ice cream truck driver got into some kind of “altercation” with a police officer.  Nobody wanted to say exactly what happened, or who started it, but we’ve heard that the ice cream truck driver is now in the hospital- and has been fired from his job.  One thing is for sure, even though the driver wasn’t a licensed Mister Softee vendor (he drove one of the generic trucks) yesterday was a tough day for *all* ice cream vendors in Midtown.

Miss Softee didn’t want to speak on the record about any of this (after all, there’s a saying about vendor fight club) but she did want to point out how unfair it is that one bad driver could ruin it for all the good Mister Softee drivers, trying to follow the rules.

“The person who got in the fight should be punished, because what happened should have never happened.  You have to treat local law enforcement with respect.  They’re putting their lives on the line, and we have to work with them and we have to respect them.  But kicking us all out of our spots isn’t fair either.”

She did confirm that the spot in question was in Midtown (near Bryant Park), and the driver who got in the fight isn’t even a regular in the spot.  It was raining on Tuesday and the ice cream vendor who spent the past 5 years parked in the spot in question, without incident, decided to stay home.  Now his spot is most likely ruined forever.

When it comes to fighting, “Mister Softee” trucks probably have the worst record of anybody… and how can you condone fighting with a cop?  But there are a few good ones (like Miss Softee) and it would suck if the bad ones ruin it for the good.  Hopefully this will all blow over soon…

Related:
Rule #1 of Vendor Fight Club is You Don’t Talk About Vendor Fight Club

I just watched the video and wanted to expand on what she says, plus share a little more detail with the readers because to think that we’re making almost a thousand dollars a day in our pay is a bit absurd and is totally misunderstood!! I think that she gives a decent explanation of the job, including the long hours, the specifics of working for Softee (that they give you a route, a tune, and you have to use all of their product), but the whole ‘making 900 a day’ thing seems like it’s being misunderstood in this report. The TRUCK may pull in $900 on a really GOOD DAY. But, out of that sum, in addition to the truck startup fees (90K) there’s the ongoing costs: the products, the commissary/depot fee, the franchise fee, gas, incurred tickets, as well as any repairs of the truck, so, while $900/day in your pocket sounds great, that’s NOT what is actually going in!!

But wait, there’s more…

Plus, listen to what she says, it’s very weather dependent — when it’s over 90 degrees, no one buys. when it’s below 70 degrees, no one buys. So, that $900/day is only on optimal, prime days where nothing goes wrong and the weather is stunning. When it’s a bad day, you could be making $200-400, and with the expenses, that’s not really ‘making a lot of money’ as she says. I talked to another friend of mine who’s been doing this a lot longer, and the route that this lady drives is a very popular one, so i think that’s really what she’s saying when she ends with, ‘I make a lot of money’. What is clear is that she is clearly one of us drivers who does the job because she loves it and she’s proud of the service that she provides. And for that, I think she’s spot on about the Mister Softee experience!!

Related:
PROFILE: Midtown Lunch’er “Chrissy” (aka Miss Softee)
Liveblogging: City Council Anti-Food Truck Hearing