Reflecting on Arizona’s desert led longtime Juneau resident Cathy Mendoza to find a new way to deliver dessert to residents of Alaska’s rainforest.<\/p>\n
On a relatively hot summer day a few years ago, Mendoza started thinking about the joy of seeing the ice cream truck in her native Arizona and realized that Juneau lacked a truck to ply the streets during the summer. Rather than wait for someone else to fill the gap, she started her own business — It’s Ice Cream Juneau!<\/p>\n
She hit the streets in June, a year later than she expected due to COVID-19, and business has been brisk since.<\/p>\n
Juneau Off-Road Association pulls request to build hardened trail in Montana Creek<\/a><\/ins><\/p>\n “Business has been better than I thought,” she said, adding that she plans to operate until September or the weather takes a turn for the worse.<\/p>\n Mendoza usually sells between 200-250 items during each shift, which generally runs from 2 to 7 p.m. each day.<\/p>\n “I’m a late sleeper and no one wants ice cream in the morning,” she said. <\/p>\n Mendoza said she’s not sure when Juneau last had an ice cream truck but understands it was in the late 1980s. As a result, many of her customers are new to the concept. She said a friend suggested the business’s name as a fun play on words that also explain the truck’s purpose.<\/p>\n “We love seeing the kids out,” she said. “That’s the best thing. I see kids bouncing around like Tigger and screaming.”<\/p>\n