By the second summer, “the job became more about regurgitation and less about creation because I got the truck and opened it at noon and stopped at 10 p.m. We wanted your eyes to bug out and we wanted you to smile.Īs the business took off, it was more difficult to experiment in the truck and keep on top of customer demand. There are also a wide variety of toppings to choose from, like ground-up wasabi peas, ginger syrup, toasted curried coconut, and olive oil and sea salt, and an ice cream shake of the day. Since the truck’s debut, their menus have evolved and become more fine-tuned, but treats like the Salty Pimp–a vanilla soft serve topped with dulce de leche, dipped in chocolate, and sprinkled with sea salt–have become mainstays. And we started thinking of international flavors, Asian flavors like curry coconut and ginger, and things that you just would not get on an ice cream truck,” Petroff noted. “We basically would shop everywhere except the ice cream aisle of the supermarket, for what to do. That playful creativity extended to their menu, which is stocked with ingredients from places like Kalustyan’s specialty market, which sells a dazzling array of foods, spices, and sweets from around the world. That was easy to do as soon as you spotted the truck and its unmistakable logo, a perfectly swirled dollop of rainbow-colored soft serve, with “BIG GAY ICE CREAM” emblazoned across the top of its cone. “We wanted you to feel like you’d been slapped in the face with flavor, and we wanted your eyes to bug out and we wanted you to smile,” Quint added. “We used a nonsensical, humorous approach to how we treated ourselves, how we talk about our product, and how we marketed ourselves, and I think that was really refreshing for people.”
![big gay ice cream big gay ice cream](https://content.fortune.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/bgic_-064.jpg)
They were talking about us as much as we were talking about them, so it was important for Doug to interact with them much more than just where I am and what’s the special of the day,” Petroff explained. “We treated them in a way as de facto marketing agents. Doug’s onto something here, and people are really responding to him, the business, his sense of humor, which became the business’s sense of humor and tactic, I think, for marketing itself.” I started getting weird, and people liked it.Īs it often happens with social media, customers became fans, proselytizers, and even friends. Petroff said, “That’s when we realized, okay, we need to take it a little more seriously. “I was kind of losing my mind.” Customers came for the ice cream and stayed for Quint’s sense of humor, food porn, occasional celeb appearances, and photos of their dog Buster.Įven when their truck was off the road that winter, BGIC’s Twitter following grew. “I started getting weird, and people liked it,” he admitted. Of course, tweeting twice a day isn’t the best way to build a brand, and besides, Quint began getting a little stir crazy from being in the van by himself all day. At first, Quint began using Twitter just to let everyone know where he’d be parked and what the daily specials were. What the duo was much smarter about was social media.
![big gay ice cream big gay ice cream](https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/00ecdd2e-7266-4eca-a24c-eda0b8766a4f_1.e956eaf8b5dea5b8f563c976b2871172.jpeg)
That first summer, “the only thing that we did I think stupidly was that we bought all of our ingredients retail.” Bryan Petroff and Doug Quint in front of their East Village Big Gay Ice Cream Shop Follow along on my misadventures because I’m sure we’re going to royally f**k up something, and it will be fun for a laugh.” They didn’t really have a business plan then, and they still don’t, according to Petroff.
![big gay ice cream big gay ice cream](https://foodology.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/bg-sprinkles.jpg)
![big gay ice cream big gay ice cream](http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/140311101326-big-gay-ice-cream-nyc-00000129-1024x576.jpg)
Quint posted on Facebook, “I’ve got a big, gay ice cream truck this summer. They came up with the name practically by accident. She put him in touch with some people who rented out Mister Softee trucks, and Quint proposed the idea to Petroff, who thought it sounded like a fine idea. “I was looking at Craigslist for weird opportunities, like to work for a butcher or something like that,” he said, when he saw a friend’s Facebook post about the possibility of renting an ice cream truck for the summer.
Big gay ice cream professional#
Quint, a one-time professional bassoonist, wanted to “do something unusual” for the summer of 2009.