When summer heat sizzles, sales from Las Vegas ice cream trucks fizzle

It’s 4 p.m. on a Wednesday in June at Mission Hills Park in Henderson. It’s 108 degrees, and the park is empty, except for a few families who are posted up at the “splash pad” to cool off.

Rebecca Flores said there’s usually an ice cream truck here, so she is prepared when she takes her children out for some summer fun.

“We brought the change and everything,” she said.

In most places, summer means novelty ice cream bars and catchy ice cream truck jingles ringing throughout the neighborhood. But the Las Vegas Valley isn’t “most places,” and the ice cream truck industry takes a downturn every year as would-be customers try to beat the heat with air conditioning instead of sweet treats.

“People think that owning an ice cream truck, that it is booming in the summer, when really, it’s not,” said Eddie Bonilla, owner and operator of Funky Munky Ice Cream.

Bonilla estimated that his sales drop by more than 50 percent during summer.

“You’re driving around trying to make sales, and it’s hard because no one’s really out,” he said. “You’re basically wasting gas.”

Bonilla said he had to halt his business this summer to take care of his two young children, but in the past he would scale back his operation during the sweltering summer months.

Triple-digit temperatures also hurt Norman and Vivi Cuadra’s business, Frankie’s Ice Cream Trucks.

“Business during the summer is the worst,” Norman Cuadra said.

He said running his trucks’ generators can cost upward of $50 a day, which can be cost-prohibitive.

“If you’re going to get out to sell $60, why would we do that?” Norman Cuadra said.

The lack of customers at community parks forces the Cuadras to do most of their business at private events, but they still make appearances in Lewis Family Park to serve the east Las Vegas neighborhood.

Bryce Lamoreaux, assistant manager at Flavors, a wholesale ice cream store that mainly supplies products for mobile ice cream vendors, said his store’s sales dry up in the heat, too.

“Once it gets over 90 degrees, the sales drop quite a bit,” he said.

He estimates the store loses as much as 50 percent of its business.

“It’s just kind of cutback season,” he said.

Not only does the store try to keep ice cream inventory at a minimum, but employee hours also get cut.

Lamoreaux said most people wait until it cools down later in the day to go outside, giving ice cream trucks a narrow window to make sales before they have to stop around sundown. Southern Nevada Health District regulations require trucks to stop operating at 7 p.m. or half an hour after sunset, whichever comes first, unless they are at a special event.

Ice cream truck owners will start to feel some relief during back-to-school season, when they will be able to sell their products around parks and schools, Lamoreaux said.

But the real sweet spot for selling the frozen treats won’t come until temperatures fall in the range of 70 to 90 degrees, he said.

Contact Blake Apgar at bapgar@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Find @BlakeApgarLV on Twitter.