Italian ice is hot — as in, very popular.
Just ask Troy Davis. He recently rolled his Groovy Italian Ice food truck into Shelby Farms Park and set up shop.
“They sold me out twice,” he says.
Davis knew he was onto a good thing when he participated in the Soulful Food Truck Festival March 13th at Tiger Lane. “It did amazing. We sold out about 4:30 [p.m.]. We opened at noon.”
He got the idea to sell Italian ice about two years ago. “I wanted to bring something different to Memphis. You got a lot of people doing snow cones. And you got Baskin-Robbins and all that doing ice cream. So, I said, ‘I want to do Italian ice.’”
Italian ice isn’t the same as a snow cone, Davis says. “A snow cone is kind of crunchy. Italian ice is soft and smooth.”
He offers a variety of Italian ices. “I do eight flavors, but, eventually, I want to do at least 20.”
Davis currently sells blueberry, strawberry, cherry, pineapple, mango, cotton candy, and strawberry lemonade. “The most popular is strawberry lemonade. They’ll be gone in an hour.”
Davis, who also owns a lawn service, TD’s Lawn Care, discovered Italian ice during one of his jobs. He met a man selling it on his food truck. He told Davis, “You need to do it. It’s easier to scoop and there’s a bigger profit margin.”
A native of Nashville, Davis was adopted by his grandmother when he was 10 and moved to Memphis, where he began his lawn service. “I was cutting grass at 10 years old. Walking around the neighborhood cutting grass.
“I took it seriously about two or three years ago. I really sat down and started looking at the numbers and started realizing I could make a good profit over the years. I started buying better equipment to make the job easier for me.”
He originally was going to call his Italian ice business TD’s Italian Ice, but he thought, “I’ve already got TD’s Lawn Care.
“I was talking to my girl. She said, ‘You should do ‘Groovy Italian Ice.’”
“Groovy” conjured up “bright colors, happiness, peace, and love,” which Davis then used in his logo.
Strawberry lemonade is his favorite flavor. “I like strawberry and lemon mixed together. I like sour apple, too.”
He gets flavor requests from customers. “Sometimes people ask, ‘Can you mix it?’” Davis will then mix together flavors like blueberry, pineapple, and lemon.
Along with Italian ice, Davis also sells nachos and jumbo hot dogs on the food truck. And he sells his homemade cookies: strawberry lemonade, lemon, and regular strawberry. “I’m not necessarily a good cook. I’m still learning. Right now I’ve started baking cookies.”
His first batch of cookies he brought to the food truck sold out, Davis says. “The way we advertise our business is it’s unique and different. We were doing the cookies for a test run, and I saw that people really liked the cookies. So, I’m going to start making the cookies now. Really, I looked on YouTube at how to make the strawberry lemonade cookies.”
Davis plans to open an additional food truck. And he’d eventually like to open a brick-and-mortar business, where he’ll sell more food in addition to the Italian ice and cookies. “Like funnel cakes, chicken tenders, hamburgers, funnel fries, different kinds of carnival food.”
Grass-cutting time will hit around the end of March, so Davis’ sister, Ashley Randolph, will be helping with the food truck business.
And after a particularly grueling yard-cutting job in the blazing sun, Davis probably will quench his thirst with one of his Italian ices. And it’ll probably be strawberry lemonade.
To find out where the Groovy Italian Ice truck will be, go to @groovy_italianicellc on Instagram.