Here comes the ice cream man!
Mobile Bubble Ice Cream Company is a dream for local kids -- and for its owners.
bhonig@beaufortgazette.com
843-986-55
Some children dream of wealth and fame, starring on the screen or scoring on the field. Tim Duke dreamed of sweaty summers in an aluminum truck, bringing sweets and smiles to children like himself.
"Growing up here, we didn't have an ice cream truck -- we had the milkman, who delivered little pieces of ice cream," he says Wednesday inside Sweet Pea, a 1989 Snap-on tools van converted to hold frozen treats. "He had maybe one or two things ... and he came around about once a week. But when he did come around, I would be scrambling for change.
"I remember saying, 'One day, I'm going to be an ice cream man.'"
Some dreams do come true.
Duke, 44, who works as a respiratory therapist at Beaufort Memorial Hospital, decided to pursue one of two dreams four years ago: own a hot rod or run an ice cream truck.
"I couldn't decide: Hot rod. Ice cream truck. Hot rod. Ice cream truck," he says. "Then my kids said, 'Daddy, get the ice cream truck. I'll ride on the ice cream truck with you.'
"At that point, I'm butter in their hands."
Rolling slowly down Richmond Avenue in Port Royal on Wednesday, the lilting chimes of "It's a Small World" sprinkling the air, four boys in shorts and T-shirts or polo shirts come running toward Sweet Pea.
"If that's not worth it right there -- a bunch of friends all together, cruising up to the ice cream truck in their new shoes," Duke smiles. "I mean, look at these kids."
"I'll have two of the Oreo ones," a boy in a blue polo shirt says.
"How much do you have? Two dollars?" Duke asks. "Those are $1.50, so how much is it for two? It's $3, so why don't you get two $1 items?"
The boy understands the math lesson and confers with another boy. Then Duke realizes the boy in the blue shirt was treating his friend.
"They're $1.50, so you'll know for next time," Duke says, handing him the Oreo treats, "but here you go."
Butter in their hands.
"I want a Triple Chocolate Brownie," another boy says, handing him a $1 bill, a quarter and a coin-shaped piece of metal for the $1.50 item.
"That's not even really a coin, but that's OK. I've taken less than that," he tells the boy.
Duke gets back behind the wheel under an old-fashioned wooden sign for ice cream that reads, "Just Lickin' the Heat," and begins to drive away.
"Tell all your friends the ice cream truck's back in town," he yells out the open door.
"Woo-hoo!" the boy in the blue shirt yells in return.
"What are you guys going to do with your garbage when you're done?"
"Throw it away or recycle!"
He turns onto 16th Street and passes two boys walking, but they don't ask him to stop. Maybe they don't have any money.
Then two boys ride up on bikes to buy treats.
"Can you come meet me in the park?" Duke asks, and they oblige. "I don't like selling in front of kids who aren't going to get anything."
He sells the boys some gumballs then rolls down Paris Avenue, the sound of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" turning pedestrians' heads outside. Inside, Duke is laying out his payment policy.
"I take nuts, bolts, belly fuzz -- I don't give stuff away, but I've taken trash before," he says. "In poor neighborhoods where they can't pay for ice cream, I pass out trash bags and say, 'If you bring back a bag of trash, you can have a $1 item.'
"My wife says that's why I'm not making any profit off the truck," he continues, then shrugs. "She's probably right. ... But what are you going to do? It's all about customer service and keeping them happy."
Sweet Pea cost $18,000, and Duke has spent thousands more on improvements and upkeep. Nowadays, though, "the truck takes care of itself," he says. He breaks even.
"I didn't go into it thinking I would get my investment back anytime soon," Duke says. "But if I can't make the system work (financially), my wife's not going to let me play on the truck anymore."
He has started putting advertisements for local businesses on his truck and he works birthday parties and other events to make ends meet. Without the parties and ads, Duke says, he'd have to get a third job to pay for his second one.
"I can't raise my prices," he points out. "The whole idea is that the kid can get something with the change they pull out of their pocket."
Duke spends $25 to $30 on gas each afternoon, and he has to pay his employees -- his four children, who take turns making good on their promise to ride with him nearly every day. He also now has a partner, who drives Mobile Bubble Ice Cream Company's second truck.
"My brother retired with high blood pressure," Duke remembers. "His health was failing, and I said, 'You need a job. Come back to South Carolina and go into business with me. After one month, we'll see if your health's improved."
Charlie Duke, 49, moved home from Atlanta, where he worked in expedited transportation, and within one month, his blood pressure had returned to normal.
"I'd go out and see how excited and happy the kids were," Charlie says Thursday. "There's really no stress to the job, and every day is fun. Every day is an adventure."
The kids light up the Dukes' days, but they're not the only customers on their routes. Forty-five to 47 percent are adults, Tim says.
"All we are is big kids in a grown-up outfit."
Tim doesn't eat anything off the truck these days because he's been on Weight Watchers for a month. But before then, his favorite was a classic: fudge bars.
The biggest seller on the truck, though, is unquestionably blue raspberry sno-cones.
"I sell five times more of that than anything else on the truck," Tim says. "And it's the one thing nature didn't create. There is no blue raspberry."
The sno-cones are so good, he says, because he uses homemade syrup -- not that store-bought stuff that loses its flavor halfway through the cone.
"I know I shouldn't say this, but one gallon of syrup takes 5 pounds of sugar," Tim says. "But when you eat it, you turn the cup upside down and tap it to get that last little bit."
Mobile Bubble has one last thing on its agenda: to get a business license in Beaufort. Various red tape has held up its approval, so the Dukes only ride in Port Royal and Beaufort County.
But once that's accomplished, Tim will just sit back, drive his truck and live out his dream.
"I'll know when I leave this Earth that I did something I wanted to do as a child and I made a whole lot of other kids happy," he says. "I can't say enough about how much fun it really is."