Good-Humored Entrepreneurs

Getting the Cold Shoulder From the Economy, Pals Venture Into the Ice Cream Business

It started as a joke.

Jake Sendar and Timothy Patch, two high school buddies home from college for the summer, would soup up an old family minivan and sell ice cream to kids in the neighborhood. Just for fun.

But no one seriously thought they would do it. Now, it's probably safe to say the two 19-year-olds, who started their business last week with nothing more than ambition and a rickety old van, have proved their doubters wrong.

"I was saying all the time that we couldn't have better summer jobs than selling ice cream," Patch said yesterday. "Because nobody is unhappy to see an ice cream truck."

At a time when the recession is eliminating most traditional summer work for teenagers and young adults, these young vendors have found their niche, leaving jobs at the mall, movie theaters and fast-food chains to older workers.

Sendar, of Potomac, first thought of the idea a month ago, after his mother suggested he get a job selling tart frozen yogurt for the District-based salad chain Sweet Green, which had just launched its frozen yogurt truck concept. Sendar was home from Vanderbilt University and working at a neighborhood pizza joint two days a week.

But Sendar said he didn't like the sound -- or taste -- of tart frozen yogurt.

He remembered that Patch, who lives in the District's Palisades section, had a well-worn, cobalt-blue Volkswagen Eurovan that had been passed down from his parents. They and their buddies used to pile into it for road trips when they attended Georgetown Day School in Northwest. So Sendar asked his friend about the idea.

"I realized it was totally doable," Sendar said.

Patch, skeptical at first, agreed. But he said it didn't sink in that they were actually going to sell ice cream out of a truck this summer until they left Sears with a commercial-grade freezer.

"That was when I realized he really was serious," Patch said.

For the past week and a half, the two have been traveling around town learning the ropes of the ice cream truck business -- and grossing $200 to $400 a day.