Pushcart business good 'when it's hot'
By Ramón RenterÃ*a / El Paso Times
Article Launched: 06/20/2008 12:00:00 AM MDT



While most of us complain about the relentless June heat, Mario Ramirez embraces it as a blessing.

Ramirez, 58, is a paletero, an old-fashioned pushcart vendor who has been selling cool treats on a stick for 35 years.

"I sell a lot when it's hot, but at my age, you sometimes ache at the end of the day," Ramirez said.

The intense heat is helping some ice-cream and frozen-treat street vendors while hurting others.

El Paso has had 11 days in June so far with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees, including the past six consecutive days, according to the National Weather Service in Santa Teresa.

Thursday's high was 104.

Forecasters said slight relief is expected in the next few days, although El Pasoans might complain of more uncomfortable daytime temperatures as humidity moves into the area with predicted showers and thunderstorms through the weekend.

That kind of prediction is just perfect for Ramirez, who sells 100 to 120 frozen fruit or frozen juice bars daily at a buck apiece in Downtown El Paso.

Ramirez rings the three bells on his pushcart, which is loaded with dry ice and sometimes as many as 17 dozen or more frozen fruit bars. He attracts customers like Yolanda Cisneros, a Juárez homemaker recently shopping in El Paso.

"When there's no water, the paleta is the perfect way

to cool off," Cisneros said.
Ramirez works the same route day in and day out, no matter how hot, sometimes shooing away the competition -- pirate vendors without credentials.

"With a cart like this, who needs gasoline?" he said.

Ramirez works for Jose Molina, a former accountant in Juárez who sells paletas from April to November. He started out in an ice-cream truck, and when it broke down five years ago, he switched to three pushcarts that he puts on the streets of El Paso, at city parks and at festivals that draw big crowds.

"Some people think of this as work for humble people," Molina said. "Without thinking, I revived an old custom, the pushcart paletero."

The hotter it gets, the better life is for Molina.

"I earn good money. I get to talk to lots of people and I'm free," Molina said. "On a good Sunday, I sell 400 to 450 paletas."

Norma Tena helps her father manage Big Boy Ice Cream Concessions, a Central El Paso wholesale and retail outlet that supplies almost every independent ice-cream truck and ice pop vendor in the city.

"The heat's affecting people quite a bit," Tena said. "We have customers that come in here and hang out just because of the air conditioning."

Tena said some pushcart vendors are doing OK this summer, while ice-cream truck drivers, already hurt by escalating gasoline prices, are having a tough time finding customers.

"Sales are slow, an average of 10 percent down due to the heat," Tena said. Everybody's staying indoors, so it's affecting our sales quite a bit."

The top seller: the ever-popular border favorite Fruitiki frozen paleta in a large assortment of flavors, including strawberry, lime, piña colada, mango, coconut, tamarindo and pecan.

"It's natural and it's fresh and doesn't leave you with a thirsty aftertaste," Tena said. "What's really going out right now is the ice pops. Nobody wants to do dairy products."

So how does someone who sells ice cream, frozen treats and other ice products stay cool on a super hot day?

"I stay in the freezer," Tena said, only half joking.


Ramón RenterÃ*a may be reached at rrenteria@elpasotimes.com; 546-6146.



No way my kids would ever eat anything from these "carts"





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