The distinctive Mister Softee jingle echoes through the five boroughs block-by-block again.
"Summer’s finally here,” said Sony Sharma after visiting a Mister Softee truck for a crying child in his home. “Every time you do hear the truck, so I run out. It’s like a normal thing,” he said.
“It’s time to run out and go get some ice cream. That’s exactly what it’s all about,” said another man with cone in hand.
Antoine James said it’s for kids, but when it was pointed out that he’s an adult he said laughing, “I gotta go back to old times and try to enjoy the little bit you know. Have a little ice cream.”
Kelly Nabeejat said he loves his job driving his Mister Softee ice cream truck. He’s been at it for more than a decade.
“It makes me feel happy cause I get to deal with a lot of kids,” said Nabeejat.
These days though he doesn't hear children screaming for ice cream as often as he used to on his route in South Ozone Park, Queens.
“There’s nobody on the street, there’s no business,” he said.
Now when his truck pulls up, there’s rarely a crowd of kids around his window, just a parent or two, sometimes with a big order.
Gabil Jaikeran was ordering six or seven cones.
"I have grandkids in there, my wife and daughter in there,” talking about who was waiting for the cold treats he was fetching.
“This time of the year [is usually] busy, but it’s very quiet," said Nabeejat. “I don’t know. People are not sure if it’s safe to come out to get an ice cream.”
Nabeejat wants his customers to know he’s taking precautions, wearing an extra layer of gloves to handle food, collecting money in a basket and cleaning his truck all day, beginning when he picks it up from the lot.
He uses bleach to disinfect everything, from the steering wheel to supplies.
“I try to stay on top of them the best I can,” said Craig Zoly, the President of MSQ Corporation, a Distributor for Mister Softee.
He maintains 80 Mister Softee trucks, checking drivers' temperatures before he distributes the day’s ice cream and supplies. He said he shut down the entire operation for roughly 6 weeks.
“We didn’t think it was right to do and a lot of my guys didn’t want to go to work they were afraid with the stuff going on,” said Zoly.
“Financially, it’s very tough because some of us did not get unemployment and our bills were very high” explained Nabeejat.
He returned to work on May 1, and is trying to make up for lost time. He would like Mr. Softee and his distributor to cut owner-operators like him a break on some of the fees.
After all, he now also has added expenses: cleaning supplies and masks he hands out to customers to encourage social distancing.
“I’m scared for myself, my family and I’m also scared for the people, the customers as well,” he said. He hopes things get back to normal and he sees lines at his truck, like the ones he drives by at Urgent Care Facilities with people waiting for COVID-19 testing.