When you hear a bell playing “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” or the “Green Acres” theme song, it can only mean one thing: the ice cream man is nearby.
For the last 34 years, Mark West has been the man ringing the bell and delivering ice cream to just about every town within a 90-mile radius of Kansas City.
West said he wants to continue to spread joy by simply doing what he loves: delivering ice cream.
“All the smiles are definitely a big perk,” he said.
West was a manager at Frosty Treatz in Kansas City for 31 years before the company closed in 2019. West has been an independent distributor for the last three years.
During his time as a manager, West would train new drivers on what routes to take where they could make the most sales. However, West said his advice was not often followed.
“I got started out here because people, even somebody that lived in one of these towns, they would get lost,” West said. “One guy calls me…‘Am I supposed to be seeing signs for Denver, Colorado?’ I was like ‘Oh, my God. Did you sell any ice cream?’ ‘I never did see any of them towns you wanted me to go to.’ So, the very next guy ends up at the Potawatomi Indian Reservation. Now I’m like, ‘That’s enough. I’m going to start running by myself.’”
Even though he lives in Independence, Missouri, West doesn’t mind making the drive to Kansas for his customers.
“I just like the people,” West said. “You know, I burn a little more gas driving all this way, but those certain kind of ice cream man relationships with the people and kids [makes it worth it].”
West said Saturdays and Sundays are his normal days in Eudora unless an otherwise special event brings him to town.
Depending on how busy he is in other towns, West typically arrives in Eudora around 5 p.m. and stays for roughly an hour and a half each day before leaving around 6:30 p.m. However, he said he is usually in town a little longer on Saturdays.
West said he usually stops at the Parks and Recreation Department’s community pool around 5:30 p.m.
However, West said he usually only goes where he knows he will make a sale, which means he often stays on the south side of town.
During the week, West said it is common for him to work 100 hours, including driving and preparation time. West said he operates for 10 months out of the year.
As well as being in Eudora over the weekend, West makes stops in De Soto and Tonganoxie on Saturdays and Sundays. He also goes to Linwood and Basehor on Sundays.
Other cities West serves include Overland Park, Shawnee, Bonner Springs, Edwardsville and Piper.
West said he likes to visit the same cities and hit different areas of the city so people have the opportunity to catch him, mainly because there are not many Frosty Treatz ice cream trucks around anymore.
“I had decided I want to give more people a chance to get ice cream at least once a week and because there’s so few of us,” he said. “We went from 145 trucks in the metro in 2018 to about 35.”
With all the miles he puts in, West has to keep his ice cream truck in tip-top shape. West said he has owned his current truck since 2020 and does all the maintenance on it by himself.
West said his previous truck had almost half a million miles before it finally broke down.
“The van I bought from Frosty, I knew it had the best freezer, but it was the crumbiest truck,” West said. “In 2020, the day before Easter, it went down in a blaze of glory. The engine locked up, and I had just taken a picture of it turning 400,000 miles.”
West bought his current truck the next day. He said it took him eight days to fix up and convert it to an ice cream truck. This included lifting the 1,200 pound freezer into the back.
“I had it on a cart so I had to lift it up about 10 inches,” West said. “I stacked up something behind me and pushed it in with my legs.”
West also put a new engine in his truck at 293,000 miles because he said the previous engine was notorious for blowing spark plugs. He said he has 83,000 miles on the current engine.
Even though the company closed in 2019, West said he still keeps in touch with the former owner of Frosty Treatz, Carl Long, and even works with him to get some of the ice cream he sells.
However, West said most of his ice cream comes from the Kansas City Ice Cream Co.
Since West buys certain items from Long, he is able to sell them at lower prices than if he bought them from the Kansas City Ice Cream Co.
“They want us to charge $4 for a strawberry shortcake bar. I know in Chicago and Oklahoma City they’re used to paying for those kinds of things, but this market here doesn’t support that,” West said. “Certain things I can get from him that I give the customers at a better price is the reason I do that.”
While he tries to help customers out by keeping his prices low, West said his biggest challenge is managing higher prices on certain treats as well as paying for gas.
“We had a price hike the other day. The bars and the bomb-pops went up 50 cents more. It didn’t really cause me hardly any problems, but I still hate that that has to happen,” West said. “I’m actually upside down on a few of these things. I just refuse to go up with them.”
West gets 50% of every sale he makes, plus any tips he makes. For instance, if he sells a $2 orange bar, $1 goes for the treat. The other $1 goes to him, his insurance, truck maintenance and everything else.
West’s menu ranges from Fun Dip, which costs only 50 cents, to BlueBunny loaded sundaes that cost $5. Some customer favorites are the Spongebob Squarepants popsicle, bomb pops and an Oreo ice cream sandwich.
When you are an ice cream man for as long as West has been one, you pick up on some things that help you work more efficiently.
West said sometimes he struggles to hear what kids want or won’t see what they point at on his menu. So, he has learned to watch a kid’s eyes and read their lips in order to make the transaction go smoothly.
If West can find a way to get ice cream to somebody, he will, even if they are three stories up.
“I used to sell in Topeka quite often, and there’s these apartments fairly close to Wanamaker. It’s been a long time since I’ve been there, but there was a guy in the third-story apartment that used to flag me down from the third balcony,” West said. “So, I would actually throw ice cream up to him, and he’d put his money in the clip of a pen and throw it to me. I get a new pen every time I sold him ice cream. But he goes, ‘You’re the only guy that ever notices me up here. You’re good!’”
The ice cream truck has a history that has lasted just over 100 years, according to Smithsonian Magazine. For many years, the arrival of the ice cream truck was a time for kids to make summer plans with their friends in their neighborhood.
As a journalist in 1979 said, “sleepovers, birthday parties and picnics were often planned right at the truck’s wheels.”
West said he thinks the summer tradition of the ice cream truck has stood the tests of time because of the different experience it gives people.
“Here’s what my kids did: We had ice cream from my truck in our freezer at home. We had ice cream from the store in our freezer at home, and they would stop the guy that drove by my house and buy the exact same thing we already had in the freezer,” West said. “So, you know, even though their dad’s an ice cream man, they still like that experience, too.”
This idea remains true with some of West’s young customers as well. For example, the Sims brothers, Peyton and Lucas, always enjoy the experience of buying ice cream from the ice cream truck.
Peyton Sims, 12, said his favorite memory of buying ice cream from the ice cream truck was during a friend’s birthday party.
“One time it was like raining, and me and my friends were just like trying to find him,” he said. “It was during my friend’s birthday party. We couldn’t find him, but we heard him so we were just running to him. We eventually found him, but he was just about to leave.”
Lucas Sims, 9, said his favorite memory of the ice cream truck was during the Fourth of July one year when he and his family got ice cream with a lot of their neighbors.
Being able to deliver these types of experiences to kids is why West thinks the ice cream truck will always be around, even if ice cream shops bring competition to towns.
“I remember years ago when I heard Dairy Queen was going to be here [in Eudora]. I was kind of worried about what I would do,” West said. “That’s been a long time now. It’s probably been 18-20 years. But it didn’t hurt me at all. It actually helped me. I was selling more.”
With no plans to retire in sight, West said he tries not to worry about anyone else and only focuses on himself.
“I try to be the best I can at everything,” he said.
Reach reporter Jack Denebeim at [email protected]
