Retirees go green selling ice cream

It's summertime, the season to think of something serious, like ice cream!

That's what Frank and Elaine Piotrowski of Central Islip did four years ago, when they decided to retire from the Allstate Insurance Agency they owned in Deer Park for a quarter-century.

They bought two ice cream trucks, named their business Roxy's Ice Cream Truck after their Havanese puppy, Roxy, and then made the trucks green. Not as the color of the ice cream trucks, which are actually red, but green as in environmentally friendly.

Frank, 68, put golf cart batteries into the trucks to power everything but the engines. When they stop, the trucks emit no generator noise, no diesel fumes and no heat. The batteries also keep the refrigerator cold. The trucks carry 60 different varieties of packaged ice cream.

"The only thing you hear is the air-conditioning on the roof," he said.

The Piotrowskis take the trucks to corporate picnics, fairs and soccer and lacrosse games in East Islip. They also make the rounds on summer afternoons and evenings through suburban streets on Long Island's South Shore. But the ice cream truck business has proved a lot more work than either Piotrowski had expected, and is not for everyone.

"We've never worked harder," said Frank. "It's harder than the insurance business. You have to do everything: take inventory, orders, take the stuff home, then go out at night again and reload for the next day. You're a jack-of-all-trades."

When the Piotrowskis' retired they had thought they would be able to stay that way. It was not for long, though, as the economy soured. "We decided we needed to do something," said Elaine, 65. "We didn't want another brick and mortar business. "We wanted more free time." Oh well.

But the business has its rewards. "When I had my agency not everyone who would walk in was smiling at me," Elaine said. "Now everyone is smiling at me."