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Itap been a quiet summer in Colorado. No high-pitched jingle version of “Pop Goes the Weasel” carrying in the wind. No crinkly popsicle wrappers being ripped open. No wet plop of a SpongeBob ice cream bar crashing onto hot asphalt; a child’s apocalyptic wails ensuing. Instead, there is only the frosty silence of neon shaved ice. So much neon shaved ice.
It made me wonder: What happened to our Good Humor-slinging heroes of summer? Did Big Ice crush the old-school ice cream truck beneath its tropical-flavored, rainbow wheels? Has the neighborhood ice cream man gone the way of beepers, Blockbuster and human decency?
I needed answers.
I started with the real villains, because letap face it, the ice cream truck is dying, and itap all the children’s fault. I blame my son, Sam. I blame the six-year-olds down the street and the third grader next door.
Seriously, what kind of monsters are these knee-high humans who prefer vaguely flavored ice to a sweet/tart cored, creamy vanilla ice cream bar coated in crushed shortbread bits and freeze-dried strawberries? No, Pete Townshend, the kids are not alright.
Some will chalk it up to “changing preferences,” but I see it for what it truly is. A full-blown generational betrayal. The classic ice cream truck was built for a simpler, less discerning era, a time when kids were happy to run three blocks barefoot to suck on something that tasted like red dye #40.
Today’s child doesn’t want an Orange Creamsicle or a Push-Up Pop thatap been sitting on the bottom of a chest freezer since the Obama administration. No, today’s child has opinions on mango chamoy and gets their frozen treat fix at HOA meetups and weekend soccer tournaments. Thatap not a bad thing, but it has completely neutered the anarchic, sugar-crazed joy of chasing down a moving vehicle.
Sure, there have been some issues. Take the infamous Ice Cream Wagon incident of 2024, when the longtime truck was found to be operating without a license, and, worse, hired a registered sex offender to drive around selling to kids.
It was the ultimate PR nightmare — and the perfect opportunity for Big Ice to swoop in with its Tiger’s Blood syrup, color-changing cups and business model that actually made economic sense. Kona Ice conquered the suburbs, and now here we are, in our grim reality of a jingle-less, wonky-little-SpongeBob-face-less summer.
When I reached out to the City and County of Denver’s Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection — the gatekeepers of frozen treats on wheels — they insisted the scene is actually thriving. In fact, the number of ice cream vendor licenses they’ve issued jumped from 20 in 2024 to 61 in 2026.
But I don’t believe them. Those aren’t the vintage, jingling ice cream trucks I’m looking for. Thatap fleet expansion from the Kona Ice conglomerate (each truck needs its own license) and artisan ice cream carts that are most definitely not selling me patriotic Bomb Pops but will happily offer up a $7 scoop of lavender-infused Hot Honey Ube. I was looking for an endangered species, and they were giving me administrative camouflage.
I was determined to find a real, living, ice cream truck driver to interview. And let me tell you, I have never worked so hard to track down a source for a story. In my career, I’ve interviewed Michelin-starred chefs, politicians and Alton Freaking Brown. Every one of them was easier to get on the horn than someone slinging Choco Tacos out of a converted Chevy step-van.
After striking out locally, I resorted to desperation. I hit the “Contact Us” button on Good Humor’s corporate website, begging them to reveal their Colorado wholesale distribution secrets.
Crickets.
Until twelve days later, when a hot tip arrived in my inbox from a customer service representative named Aakash. Aakash kindly informed me that Thornton-based Sol Popsicles and Snacks may offer the variety of frozen products I sought in my area.
Armed with Aakash’s beacon of hope, I reached out to Sergio Rodriguez, the owner of Sol Popsicles and Snacks. I learned that he started his novelty ice cream truck in 2021 and has since expanded to three trucks, two vans and a trailer parked year-round at the Denver Premium Outlets. If anyone knew the cold, hard truth about the streets, it was him.
Rodriguez explained that children’s tastes and behaviors have changed, which I naturally interpreted as him confirming my theory that kids today are the worst.
“Kids aren’t playing outside anymore,” Rodriguez said. “I grew up playing and walking around with a group of four or five friends. One of us had $20, and you’d split that into four or five popsicles. But thatap not the case anymore, with kids being at home more, doing more organized activities. The demand isn’t what it used to be for us to drive around.”
And even if kids once were roaming the neighborhoods, they probably weren’t this summer with its oppressive heat. Rodriguez saw a 40% drop in sales at his outlet mall trailer because parents weren’t taking their children out to the playground this year. Of course, gas prices don’t help either, turning a 45- minute drive into a high-stakes profit margin gamble.
So instead of cruising neighborhoods the way God and nature intended, Rodriguez stalks a captive audience. Itap much more economically logical to set up shop at sports tournaments and practices than to troll empty residential blocks at $4 per gallon on the off-chance a rogue ten-year-old wanders outside.
“It [the youth sports event] allows me to go to one spot and park from, say, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and there’s a constant flow of kids coming. And after the game is done, they get a reward,” he said.
Then there’s the red tape. While older generations might remember ice cream trucks operating with the spirit of the Wild West, today’s operators face a labyrinth of municipal regulations — especially in Denver, which Rodriguez said had the strictest (read: expensive) licensing requirements.
As a serious, responsible ice cream truck journalist, I needed to talk to the other side. To Big Ice itself. For that, I reached out to Bill Bostwick, who owns three Kona Ice trucks (and a trailer) with his wife Rachael. The Bostwicks’ territory spans north Aurora, Glendale, southeast Denver and up to Dacono and Firestone. They themselves possess four of those 61 Denver licenses.
I didn’t want to make them feel like I was interrogating them in the disappearance of the Good Humor man or anything, but I needed to know. Did you kill my Chocolate Eclair ice cream bar?
Turns out, kind of.
Bostwick estimates there are 40 Kona Ice trucks prowling schools and youth sports along the Front Range, from Fort Collins to Pueblo. From a pure business and branding perspective, itap easy to see why they’ve conquered the market.
Their trucks are colorful, vibrant and feature a smiling, Hawaiian shirt-clad penguin, little flipper-arm triumphantly raised, clutching a rainbow snow cone. As much as I hold a deep personal grudge against my neighborhood six-year-olds, I do understand how this might be more appealing than a rusty white van.
Kona Ice also tries to offer a healthy product, some at just five calories a cup, plus allergen-free, dye-free and sugar-free options to keep modern parents happy. And the kicker, they give a good chunk of their profits–often between 10 and 20%—back to the youth organizations feeding their bottom line.
“Part of the model of Kona is we do a giveback to schools and youth sports,” Bostwick said. “We’re trying to help schools supplement income they’re missing. Thatap part of our model, and thatap why some people get into it. Itap a significant giveback.”
In fact, Kona Ice has given more than $250 million to schools and local sports leagues. Which, fine. Great. Good for our public education system and youth soccer equipment budgets.
But back to my complaint. I miss the nostalgic magic of hearing that little jingle. Of flagging down the truck, crumpled bills clutched in my fist, and–voilà—a pristine Strawberry Shortcake bar materializing in my sticky little hands.
Modern kids can keep their Tiger’s Blood, their dye-free syrups and their philanthropy-minded penguin.
I’d trade it all for one misshapen, freezer-burned SpongeBob with a gumball for an eye.
