A small group of adults gather around the safety-orange ice-cream truck parked outside the Funk House at First Friday's street fair. Some buy SpongeBob ice- cream pops, others just admire the truck's elegant, black hot-rod flame detailing. With a rushing sound the truck's front end pops up on its hydraulics. In a moment it settles down again like a giant electronic Japanese pet. Heads turn. Al Davis, owner of Fat Daddy's Ice Cream, is at the controls.
Davis sports a well-groomed ZZ Top-style beard with a mohawk brushed conservatively back from his forehead. He appears to be heartily enjoying the attention. A tricked-out ice cream truck is a fine enough advertisement for the business, not to mention the 32 different songs the truck can play, but then Davis hands out bumper stickers. Black and orange with a portrait of the truck, they read, "Lick Me" and advertise the business name. The motto on the side of the truck reads: "The Other Guy May Be Cheaper But I Use Soap And Water."
This is something of a business philosophy for 33-year-old Al Davis, who also runs the print shop his family has owned for 25 years, as well as a shop selling citizen- band radios. He prides himself as much on a quality operation as he does on his ride.
Fat Daddy's story begins in 1990 with a catering company owned by his friend Dave Diaz. Diaz was surely the first man in Las Vegas, if not in world history, to put lifts on an ice-cream truck.
"We all had a lot of fun with that truck," said Davis in an interview at the CB shop, but added, sadly, that the main branch of the catering business made far more money, leading Diaz to put the unique creature out to pasture in his back yard.
It had languished there for a decade on the day two years ago when Davis met Diaz by chance. They hadn't seen one another since Davis graduated from Chaparral High School. Davis asked Diaz about the truck—by then in pretty bad condition—and tried to get him to sell. Diaz wouldn't part with it and Davis had to settle for a gray primer-painted plumbing van full of pool equipment that his friend also kept in the yard. It was from this skeleton that Davis would resurrect the glory of the first jumping ice-cream truck.
"I had in my head what I wanted to build and my wife almost shot me," he said.
A window had to be cut into the side and the engine needed rebuilding. Diaz gave it the orange paint job and Davis, who has worked on off-road cars for much of his life, did other the decorative work himself. He traveled to Pomona, California, for old-school parts like the wide whitewall tires, chrome smoothie wheels and babymoon hubcaps. Ice cream accoutrements he scouted out on the Internet.
The Black Magic hydraulic pumps came last. When it finally met the road, the Fat Daddy's Ice Cream truck could move front, back, side to side and corner to corner—the full range of movement possible for a car on hydraulics-—with pumps controlled by six switches and powered by four batteries.
During the winter months Davis takes a vacation from the ice-cream life and winterizes the truck. But keep your eyes open come spring. On weekends through the summer and early fall, Davis makes neighborhood rounds in the early evening, keeping mostly to the Flamingo/Rainbow area of Spring Valley. This is when he sees his school-aged customers. But he also goes on after-midnight jaunts, appearing curbside at Las Vegas strip clubs, scooter races and the informal car-club meetings that take place on any open corner where enthusiasts can show off their custom automotives.
"Late at night the tattoo shops are really jumping," Davis added. He is also available for special events like gay pride celebrations, weddings and bar mitzvahs.
The nighttime tours began after one late stop at Anderson dairy, where pickups can be made round-the-clock. He would often stock up after work and pass the strip clubs along Western and Highland on the way home. One night he decided to stop. "They welcomed me in," he said. Now he is an institution, often putting in a cameo just as the dancers are getting off from work.
Davis' wife may not favor his seven-day-a-week schedule but his two daughters have discovered that there are perks when your dad is the ice-cream man.
"Their notoriety in the neighborhood has shot up a thousand percent," said Davis.
"You have to be really honest," he said. "Many customers don't know how to count money." Davis described having to chase kids who unknowingly paid him double. On the other side of things, older customers have asked for drugs using street names he was unfamiliar with. "We only have ice cream and treats on this truck," he has had to tell them.
But while Al Davis runs a clean business, he has been pulled over by the police. "Metro wanted me to show them the hydraulics," he said.