I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream!

August 10, 2009 5:01 PM

Ice cream makes most people 'happy!' Some would say 'gay!' This summer many in New York are enjoying [audio | 02:59] the 'Big Gay Ice Cream Truck.'

BTW -- "The 'Big Gay Ice Cream Truck' offers olive oil and sea salt, Nutella, bacon, and any suggestions from [its] clientele."

Mmmm...bacon and ice cream.

posted by ericb (63 comments total)

I love the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck in a Big Gay Way.
posted by The Whelk at 5:05 PM on August 10, 2009

I applaud the sentiment. I can't applaud the ice cream since even though I work two blocks south of union square, I've never seen this damn thing.
posted by jonmc at 5:12 PM on August 10, 2009

Wish I was near NYC to try it out. Nothing like the mouth feel of salty Nutella on a hot summer day.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:19 PM on August 10, 2009 [2 favorites]

(although in the same general vicinity, there's a waffle truck, a cupcake truck, a pizza truck and a coffee wagon, and of course pushcarts and shitloads of Mr Softee. I guess it's all a way of beating the astronomical Manhattan rents. Eventually, there'll be surgery wagons to beat the high cost of hospitals, I guess.
posted by jonmc at 5:20 PM on August 10, 2009

If Blasecock doesn't stop feeding me lines I'm gonna have to start paying him as part of the act.

Jonmc! You forgot dumplings. and tacos.
posted by The Whelk at 5:22 PM on August 10, 2009

Yet still no burrito cannon. Go figure.
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:24 PM on August 10, 2009 [2 favorites]

Oh man, this is the first time in my life I've ever wished to live in New York. Maybe I'll just buy a T-shirt instead...
posted by Nattie at 5:24 PM on August 10, 2009

The dumpling truck is in the financial district and the taco truck is in brooklyn (although here in astoria, were experience a Mexican migration wave and the accompanying taco trucks. The ones I mentioned are all right near union square. There's also the dessert truck down by St Marks. I had the creme brulee. It's not bad.
posted by jonmc at 5:25 PM on August 10, 2009

The city closed down the dessert truck because their food vendor's permit was no longer valid.
posted by plastic_animals at 5:31 PM on August 10, 2009

jonmc, I was at the Strand this afternoon (looked for you; didn't find you) and passed the big gay ice cream truck on my way there.
posted by ocherdraco at 5:33 PM on August 10, 2009

It's my day off.

I'll check it out.
posted by jonmc at 5:35 PM on August 10, 2009

The purple tinsel is a good start, but they need to bolt some speakers on that truck. Maybe a dance platform on top. A disco ball. Maybe some lights. I don't think I need to mention the totally killer house DJ.

What? I like house music.
posted by loquacious at 5:43 PM on August 10, 2009

*checks out jonmc checking it out*
posted by loquacious at 5:43 PM on August 10, 2009

Suckin'
too hard on your
lollipop
o love is gonna
get you down!
posted by The Whelk at 5:47 PM on August 10, 2009

Push up
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:53 PM on August 10, 2009

Enjoy this delicious treat.
posted by The Whelk at 5:59 PM on August 10, 2009

I'll eat this instead.
posted by jonmc at 6:01 PM on August 10, 2009

I'll eat this instead.
posted by The Whelk at 6:03 PM on August 10, 2009

How gay! How jolly!
posted by LSK at 6:04 PM on August 10, 2009

Take it slow
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:06 PM on August 10, 2009

Thus the agenda moves forward, inexorably.

* strokes big gay cat, tents fingers *
posted by boo_radley at 6:07 PM on August 10, 2009

Homolicious!
posted by Sidhedevil at 6:37 PM on August 10, 2009

Noooo! The truck was a block from my office today and I missed it. CURSE MY PATHOLOGICAL NEED FOR A/C ALL DAY LONG.
posted by elizardbits at 6:40 PM on August 10, 2009 [2 favorites]

I love this because it's awesome and you'd never see it anywhere else. It's hard to put a finger on why a Big Gay Ice Cream Truck wouldn't fly in San Francisco, but it wouldn't.
posted by blucevalo at 6:48 PM on August 10, 2009

If ice cream makes you gay, then bend me over and pass the goddamned lube.
posted by koeselitz at 6:54 PM on August 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

Its funny - being in NYC, I just take it for granted that you can get just about any type of food you'd want on the street from a guy with a cart or truck. Never would've thought this was Metafilter-worthy news!
posted by blaneyphoto at 6:59 PM on August 10, 2009

Mmmmmmm gay.
posted by Mister_A at 7:01 PM on August 10, 2009

Ice cream makes most people 'happy!'

Ice cream? Sure. Ice cream trucks? No. Not with the skull-fucking same eight goddamned bars of The Entertainer repeating over and over and over and over and over.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why more ice cream truck drivers aren't scaling towers with high-powered rifles.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 7:03 PM on August 10, 2009 [3 favorites]

same eight goddamned bars of The Entertainer repeating over and over and over

From their Twitter feed:

"Now playing: "Her Head's Revolving" by The Three O'Clock."
posted by sleepinglion at 7:07 PM on August 10, 2009 [2 favorites]

Dude, koeselitz, I'm already gayer than Christmas* if that's the case, given the sizeable quantities of key lime pie flavored ice cream I've consumed this year.

* phrase 'gayer than Christmas' adopted from my (well, apparently gay! who knew?) ex, who left me for a guy who collects Thomas Kinkade figurines...so, like, don't let's anyone get miffy about the phrase, which I happen to find hilarious.**

** just making a point here, so no one MetaTalks me for being homophobic or something, since I'm totally not, having, like, been engaged to a gay guy and stuff. Ahem.

YAY ICE CREAM!
posted by bitter-girl.com at 7:08 PM on August 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

Sounds like just the thing to eat after seeing Abe Lincoln's Big Gay Dance Party.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:11 PM on August 10, 2009

We have a gelato place called Capogiro in the gayborhood here in Philly, but it is stationary. As much as that might seem to cause its coolness to depreciate, in fact, I prefer it. That way, as I eat more, becoming more and more sluggish with age and increased weight, I don't have to chase after it or traipse hither and yon to go looking for it. Mmmm. Delicious stationary gay desserts...
posted by greekphilosophy at 7:32 PM on August 10, 2009

But does it serve Golden Gaytimes?
posted by crossoverman at 7:32 PM on August 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

Ice cream always makes me happy, it would have to be some damn good ice cream to make me gay.
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 7:39 PM on August 10, 2009

I dunno, rageagainsttherobots, Mitchell's key lime pie gets awfully close to the fresh mint ice cream at Christina's in Boston...and I think I might become a serial killer for a pint of that right about now.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 7:43 PM on August 10, 2009

Civil_Disobedient: "Ice cream makes most people 'happy!'

Ice cream? Sure. Ice cream trucks? No. Not with the skull-fucking same eight goddamned bars of The Entertainer repeating over and over and over and over and over.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why more ice cream truck drivers aren't scaling towers with high-powered rifles."

Around Denver, ice cream trucks play a few bars from "Union Maid", which always brings a smile to my face.
posted by boo_radley at 7:45 PM on August 10, 2009

Not with the skull-fucking same eight goddamned bars of The Entertainer repeating over and over and over

There was this really skeevy ice cream truck that used to pass through our neigborhood in Eugene, Oregon. It was an old Winnebago, with no sign or anything to indicate that it was an ice cream truck except that it was playing a loop of something our neighbor memorably described as "Al Jolson singing through a length of sewer pipe."
posted by gamera at 7:50 PM on August 10, 2009

greekphilosophy, capogiro is peripatetic! It's on Passyunk Ave. in South Philly now! I haven't been there yet, but I'm sure it's hella gay!!! In the good way!!!!!
posted by Mister_A at 7:53 PM on August 10, 2009

Hey, let's give props to the pioneers. Mr. Softee has that huge, teased, over-the-top head full of soft serve and he wears a suit with a red bow tie in the middle of August. He's had that looks since the 50's. He's like the Charles Nelson Reilly of gay ice cream.
posted by PlusDistance at 7:55 PM on August 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

Cheesedigestsall: surely this is a more awesome gay Abraham Lincoln link?

I cannot wait for my next trip to NYC to get gay ice cream (and then buy a T-shirt, but I refuse to buy the T-shirt until I've had the ice cream). I love Boston, but I have to say, it's not gay enough for me after having lived for five years in Chelsea (and I'm straight, sexy Metafilter ladies).
posted by Admiral Haddock at 7:58 PM on August 10, 2009

thats ghey
posted by Bovine Love at 7:59 PM on August 10, 2009

So true Mister_A, I live a few blocks from the one in the gayborhood (for another few weeks at least, until I ship out to my hometown in Texas which, while a very gay town, does not have awesome things like Capogiro!) and I work a block from the Rittenhouse Square location. Maybe before I leave I will do a tour of the Capogiros... a Capogiro crawl. Hmmm. This idea has merit.
posted by greekphilosophy at 7:59 PM on August 10, 2009

[MeFi Front page]

"Ice cream makes most people 'happy!' Some would say 'gay!' This summer many in New York are enjoying [audio | 02:59] the 'Big Gay Ice Cream Truck.' [more inside]"

[click]

"I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream! Ice cream makes most people 'happy!' Some would say 'gay!' This summer many in New York are enjoying [audio | 02:59] the 'Big Gay Ice Cream Truck.' BTW -- "The 'Big Gay Ice Cream Truck' offers olive oil and sea salt, Nutella, bacon, and any suggestions from [its] clientele."

[click]

The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck, Launching Soon in NYC

[scrolls down below picture]

"Rainbow sprinkles might mean something a little different on a soft serve cone from The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. Doug Quint, a New York-based bassoonist who just finished coursework for his musical arts doctorate at CUNY, is rolling out his playful new mobile dessert business as soon as his permit shows up (hopefully next week).

DAMMIT, WHAT'S WITH THE "GAY"? JUST GET TO THE POINT ALREADY!!!!1!!
posted by crapmatic at 8:06 PM on August 10, 2009

jonmc, I was at the Strand this afternoon (looked for you; didn't find you) and passed the big gay ice cream truck on my way there.

Funny how jonmc and the big gay ice cream truck are never seen in the same place at the same time...
posted by hermitosis at 8:16 PM on August 10, 2009

It's hard to put a finger on why a Big Gay Ice Cream Truck wouldn't fly in San Francisco, but it wouldn't.

Oh, I don't know. SF does just fine with an entire chain of crepe-focused restaurants called "The Squat and Gobble" among other weirdly named places - not even counting theme bars like "The Stud Bar". I think a Big Gay Ice Cream Truck would do just fine there.

Except it's usually too cold in the summer for ice cream.
posted by loquacious at 8:26 PM on August 10, 2009

So that's where all the kids in the park are getting the ice cream cones covered in breakfast cereal! Cool cool.

I just keep hoping we get a Kogi Truck too some day.
posted by cazoo at 8:45 PM on August 10, 2009

DC misses out on the whole good street food scene by arbitrarily limiting the size of food carts. It's a major drag.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 9:20 PM on August 10, 2009

So, I went to make a Josh White post, and it turned out that'd been done, so I went to make a Martin Gardner post, and that'd been done, and this is all after I argued with people about Obama's Death Overseer Tribunals after getting one of those Dipshit E-mail Forwards from those Long Lost Relations That Got Hold Of Your Address ('cause obviously, it's not that you purposely chose not to contact them because they're ignorant as pigshit), and...

sobbing I WANT A BIG GAY CONE!!!
posted by Rat Spatula at 9:20 PM on August 10, 2009

Also, l33tpolicywonk owes me a Coke.
posted by Rat Spatula at 9:48 PM on August 10, 2009

so it's, um, like a regular ice cream truck? with the word "gay" on it?

and it's pink i guess
posted by LogicalDash at 9:53 PM on August 10, 2009

This is cool, but to make me properly gay, I would need a Big Gay Taco Truck.


'Cause I like tacos. I like ice cream too.




That's not code for anything.
posted by louche mustachio at 9:57 PM on August 10, 2009

This is cool, but to make me properly gay, I would need a Big Gay Taco Truck.

If it was in California it could be the Big Gay Fish Taco Truck.
posted by ryoshu at 10:20 PM on August 10, 2009

They got cocksicles?
posted by ambient2 at 10:33 PM on August 10, 2009

All we ever got from the ice cream truck back in the 1970's was this and this. We didn't go for any of that gay stuff.
posted by planetkyoto at 11:05 PM on August 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

l33tpolicywonk: Yeah, food carts in most of DC are limited to hot-dog cart trailer size, but people get creative.

For years (most of the 90s, at least) there was a guy with a popcorn cart on the 7th St. side of DOT headquarters, by the south exit to the L'Enfant Plaza metro. He sold only fresh popcorn, in small clear trash bags, for perhaps $2. He had a constant stream of customers, enough to winter at home on some Caribbean isle.

From the late 90s to the mid-00s there was a guy with a lunch cart on H St. between 22rd and 21st, on the GWU campus between the student center and the library. From what I could gather, he was a graduate student there. He sold $2 fresh-made pita pizzas baked in the cart, $4 penne pasta tubs (with ziploc bags of pasta in a steam tray), fresh pesto and marinara. The quality was extraordinarily high, as he did everything himself, most of it live in the cart.

Down on the mall there are full-size food trucks, but they are all either standard Ice Cream or Hot Dog fare with ridiculous smithsonian-level prices.
posted by blasdelf at 11:05 PM on August 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

Given the sprinkle background on the truck's page, maybe this gay ice cream man can tell us the volume of 80 million sprinkles?
posted by morganw at 11:43 PM on August 10, 2009

In Polish slang, to make ice cream ("robić lody") is to perform fellatio.
posted by pracowity at 12:25 AM on August 11, 2009 [1 favorite]

The Stud Bar

Uh. Back in the day (when dinosaurs roamed the earth) wasn't it just called "The Stud"?

If so, that was me. The one girl, drinking tequila and dancing to the tunes at Oldies Wednesday.

Also, that was me, feeling the cool, cool curb on my hot face in front of "The Midnight Sun" just off of Castro, one December after being a bit overserved.

Sometimes the capper to the evening was a quick bite at Clown Alley, or if we were in a mood, then we'd hit the Denny's in Japantown.

Of course after a while, we took it uptown to the Alta Plaza.

Ah, my incredibly misspent youth.

Oh, and I like ice cream too!
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 5:55 AM on August 11, 2009

He sold only fresh popcorn, in small clear trash bags, for perhaps $2.

Uh. You sure it was out of a cart, and not out of the trunk of his car? By any chance? I'm just curious.
posted by Dormant Gorilla at 6:02 AM on August 11, 2009 [1 favorite]

blasdelf: From the late 90s to the mid-00s there was a guy with a lunch cart on H St. between 22rd and 21st, on the GWU campus between the student center and the library. From what I could gather, he was a graduate student there. He sold $2 fresh-made pita pizzas baked in the cart, $4 penne pasta tubs (with ziploc bags of pasta in a steam tray), fresh pesto and marinara. The quality was extraordinarily high, as he did everything himself, most of it live in the cart.

Okay, that sounds awesome. Why can't I ever run into the creative vendors?

Also, I have no idea why I owe Rat Spatula a Coke.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 7:27 AM on August 11, 2009

The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck should sell Sex Pistols.
posted by notashroom at 7:56 AM on August 11, 2009

Ice cream? Sure. Ice cream trucks? No. Not with the skull-fucking same eight goddamned bars of The Entertainer repeating over and over and over and over and over.

You need to move more. They play Greensleeves here.
posted by pompomtom at 10:50 PM on August 11, 2009

Dormant Gorrila: Uh. You sure it was out of a cart, and not out of the trunk of his car? By any chance? I'm just curious.

No, he wasn't sixcolors :)

He had a standard shiny enclosed hot dog cart trailer, pulled up on the sidewalk, with no truck nearby. The clear plastic trash bags worked pretty well -- cheap, easy to carry, dealt with the hot popcorn well, and fit through the cart window easily. For the same amount of popcorn, a more traditional alternative would be to use standard paper grocery bags, but those would be very unwieldy, difficult to close, and they'd get grease stains on the bottom.
posted by blasdelf at 12:18 AM on August 12, 2009