By Linda Tyssen Mesabi Tribune
HIBBING — The Ice Cream Truck is making people smile all across the Range, and owners Trent and Janelle Janezich of Hibbing and their sons Brady and Charlie are loving it.
It’s a business, Trent Janezich told the Mesabi Tribune, “but to us it is more than that. It is a social enterprise. It is a fun and sometimes funny way of getting people together, building community, creating laughter and enjoyment in people’s lives, sharing in conversation. I can’t describe how fun, and sometimes funny, it is to drive the truck down the street and see people’s expressions, mouths agape at what they just saw. We get a kick out of that.” Coming out of COVID-10 pandemic, it is a good opportunity to “build our community back up again to being more social. So we park the truck sometimes at a local park…. families, Little Leaguers, city band, people on the basketball courts all come by the truck and grab a treat…they mill around and chat….they get to know one another again.”
The Ice Cream Truck has eight varieties of pre-packaged novelties and 10 flavors of hard scooped ice cream. “We try to keep really popular flavors like Cotton Candy, Cookie Dough, Maple Nut, Blueberry Cheesecake, Pirates Bounty, but we also rotate and try new flavors because that way every time someone comes up to the truck, it is a new experience,” the Janeziches said. For adults, the ice cream in cones or cups are the most popular. As Trent Janezich said, “For the kids, there is nothing more popular than the SpongeBob Popsicle. It is a viral hit on social media and every SpongeBob popsicle looks different….in fact most of the time, they barely look like SpongeBob, every kid rips the package open and gets a good laugh.” The SpongeBob treats are very hard to find now, he said. “Due to COVID there are numerous breakdowns in the food distribution chain, but we are navigating that and should have ten more boxes in this week.” The Janeziches also have Spiderman popsicles, ice cream sandwiches, the “cross-generational sherbet push-up,” ice cream bar, bomb pop, Dreamsicle and “son Charlie’s favorite, the Chaco Taco,” he said. And as dog lovers, the Janeziches carry “pup cups” on the truck. “Next week we will be introducing a new product, ‘The Flight of Ice Cream,’ where you can get four separate scoops of ice cream in a cool little cup container. That should be really popular because often people come up to our menu and say, ‘I am not sure what to get, I want to try them all.’ Now they will be able to try four at a time!”
Trent and Janelle Janezich added, “Our kids are getting to the age, where they could use a little more responsibility and can help out with the truck. They get to learn what it is like to work, and run a business at the same time, plus as parents, we are always trying to create memories for them. Can you imagine when they are 60, telling their grandkids that their crazy parents once ran an Ice Cream Truck? Sometimes whether they like it or not, they are stuck in the truck with us… without their tech devices… and forced to communicate not only with us, but with the general public. It is a great learning experience for sure.”
Ten-year-old Charlie said of the ice cream business, “I like making people happy with it, and I like that the Spongebob Popsicles are weird-looking which makes people laugh!” Brady, 13, said this is what he likes about the Ice Cream Truck: “Watching people smile, and when we drive by people and honk at them, they start smiling or laughing!”
This coming week, July 19-25, may be their busiest week of the summer with the Grand Rapids Car Show and Swap Meet July 23-25 and a big event for Youth in Action in Buhl on July 22. The Janeziches said, “The rest of the summer is starting to fill up fast as well –we have even had bookings already for the summer of 2022. Once school starts again though, we will be limiting our events to night and weekend events through September at which point, the truck will turn back into a pumpkin until April or May of 2022.”
The Janeziches have deep Iron Range roots. Janelle, a native of Hibbing, is the daughter of Joe and Nancy (Kleffman) Roberts, familiar names in curling. Trent grew up in the Twin Cities suburb of Fridley and is the son of Richard and Gail (Polich) Janezich, natives of Chisholm and Kelly Lake. Janelle received her bachelor’s degree from St. Cloud State, master’s from UMD and is licensed in special education. Trent is a graduate of Hibbing Community College, received his bachelor’s degree from the University of St. Thomas and his master’s and doctorate from UMD. Janelle is a special education teacher at Greenhaven Elementary in Hibbing, and Trent works for the community and technical colleges of the Northeast Higher Education District.
As to their reasons for wanting to operate an ice cream truck, Trent Janezich explained it this way: “The Ice Cream Truck is a business that was really built by Roy and Suzy Smith of Hibbing. They are good friends of ours, and they did an amazing job building it to where it is now. After a year off from COVID-19, I think Roy and Suzy really took inventory of what was important to them right now. Their daughter Cheyanne, who helped them run the business, is in college and starting to develop her life and career, so they began the search for a family that they could pass the truck on to. Roy and I work together, and he and I had been discussing it for quite some time when finally in the fall of 2020 during COVID, we decided that we were ready to take it on and shake our world up a bit! So we literally have only been doing this since the end of May.”
The Janeziches said the response has been amazing. “Not just a sales perspective (although that has been great), but more of a community support perspective. We have had awesome support from business owners that share our Facebook page (our primary method of communicating) and even host us and do collaborations where we park in front of their retail store. We have even had one business, Ken’s A-1 in Hibbing, make a very generous donation to bring treats to a local daycare.”
They have had the truck at “birthday parties, weddings, high schools, elementary schools, parades, city band, pocket park in Chisholm, hanging out at local parks, businesses for customer and employee appreciation parties/events, and also regular routes to nursing homes and recreation programs. I always joke that it is going really well because everyone loves ice cream! That is true, but there is some nostalgia and whimsy to the truck that Roy and Suzy created that we are trying to duplicate and put our own spin on. Also, we don’t take ourselves too seriously which hopefully will continue to make this fun, but seriously, we can’t thank the community enough for being as supportive as they have been!”
For more information including contacts for booking The Ice Cream Truck, visit the truck’s website at http://www.icecreamtruckmn.com.
The Ice Cream Truck 