Ice cream company brings joy, sugar to Jackson’s streets

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

By Henry Sweets

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Max Milburn was born and raised in Jackson, but only this summer, when he started pedaling a 540-pound bicycle freezer around town, did he learn how cruel its streets could be.

Fortunately for Milburn, a road cyclist, the challenge will help him prepare for a triathlon this fall.

“I’m gonna be Lance Armstrong by the end of the summer,” he joked as he took a breather from pedaling.

Wilburn, 19, drives a traveling bicycle ice cream cart for Teton Scoops. He peddles around Jackson selling a variety of ice cream bars for between $2 and $4.25 a piece.
The bike pushes the attached freezer cart, which is decorated with a flamingo, wind chimes, a rainbow pinwheel and a sign reading “Caution - kids and crazy adults.” Two speakers beneath the cart blare music ranging from reggae to the traditional chimes heard on ice cream trucks, only these bells are backed by a hip-hop beat.

Even the smallest hill can be a challenge for the quarter-ton bike, but Wilburn has tricks like a push start, or a technique where he rocks the cart up and down, to build momentum. Sometimes the cart bounces, like a low-rider in a rap video, to the beat of the music.

“The best part about this job is the exercise ... and the smiles,” Milburn said.
Grinning, with his hair blowing in the breeze and dub reggae booming from beneath the cart, Milburn looked like a poster-child for an occupation that some never knew existed.
As he pedaled one day last week, he received cheers and chuckles from onlookers, and sold a fair amount of ice cream – almost exclusively to locals.

Teton Scoops’ license prohibits it from operating on the town square, and owner Dinah Vipond said that the business’ mission isn’t to reach tourists but locals. Sure, for Music in the Hole, they expect to sell ice cream to some of its 8,000 visitors, but for most of the summer they are cruising Jackson’s neighborhoods.

“I heard him coming around the corner and had to run inside to grab some cash,” said Jeff Falk, the owner of Upstream Anglers and Outfitters, in front of his East Kelly St. residence. “I’m an outfitter - 66 years old - and this is what keeps you going,” he added, brandishing his ice cream bar.

After joking to Milburn that he should sell margaritas and congratulating him for his hard work, Falk went back to watering his lawn.

Wilburn says that people are always telling him to sell something else. Common requests have been for fruit juice and dill pickles.

One customer, Joe Newman, remembered pedaling an  ice cream bike as a kid in New Jersey.

“Ice cream sundaes, those were the expensive ones,” he said. “They cost 15 cents. If you were rich, that’s what you’d be having.”

Newman was with his wife, two of his grandchildren - Charlotte and C.J. - and their parents, Barbara and Chris Hoeft.

The Hoefts posed for a family portrait with the ice-cream man in front of their idyllic Willow Street log home. Though they had heard him driving by before, they said this was the first time they managed to catch the ice cream man.

They were reinforcing something that Milburn had said earlier in the day about the whimsical ice cream market in Jackson.

“It’s a matter of the right time, the right place and the right flavor,” he said.
That, some style and a lot of endurance.

Photo by spencer simensen
Max Wilburn and Teton Scoops encourage you to go ahead and chill out this summer.

PERMALINK:
Ice cream company brings joy, sugar to Jackson’s streets | Planet JH News Article: Restaurants And Dining

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