Doug Quint owns New York’s  Big Gay Ice Cream Truck.

http://www.biggayicecreamtruck.com/

He is an ice cream celebrity, born in Maine and a working musician who was in Boston to play bassoon at a show at Cambridge’s American Repetory Theater.  He has a happy demeanor that is infectious.  Most of the people in the ice cream business, but not all, tend to be large and cheerful.  Endomorphs, happy walruses.  We talked about his soft-serve truck and Toscanini’s.  I love soft serve.   We talked about city inspectors and burdensome rules.  We talked about food costs which are going up again.  And we talked about customers.  Both of us have smart customers, but smart customers are still capable of doing silly things.  We have a customer who has offered to protect us from space invaders and he has customers who like cherry chocolate dip because their drug habits prompt sugar ravings.  His customers can’t find him with a GPS-enabled smart phone and our customers can’t tell if we’re open when they are standing in front of the cash register talking to a menacing person armed with an ice cream scoop.  We both look forward to spring.