Delicioso Coco Helado

718-292-1930

On a sidewalk in the South Bronx, a handful of street vendors—mostly, if not all, Spanish-speaking—stands alongside empty green and white carts near an open door marked "Alfredo's Place." The Alfredo in question is Alfredo Thiebaud, the Honduran immigrant who started the sherbet vending company Delicioso Coco Helado (translation: delicious coconut ice cream), words that appear on a more prominent sign that announces this otherwise unremarkable building.

It surprised me to see that this place, which produces 13 flavors of sherbet, including the ones that you have come to expect in the Coco Helado carts—namely mango, coconut, cherry and rainbow—is also the nucleus of the street- vending operation.

During Coco Helado's selling season, which starts on April 1 and ends October 31, close to 240 carts are dispatched onto the street, and 80 to 90 vendors show up each day at Coco Helado headquarters on St. Ann's Avenue in the Bronx to replenish their wares.

Behind a counter, Sofia Pastora, Alfredo's daughter, and Jerry Thiebaud, his son, dispense provisions to pushcart operators. This involves selling three-gallon-jug containers of sherbet, which cost $16.75 or $20.50, depending on the flavor. Also behind the counter are box upon box of Dixie cups and Marcal napkins. If you have ever bought an icy on the street, you will recognize these as the endearingly homespun accoutrements that come with your purchase.

Next, Jerry rips a blue ticket from a large roll and hands it to a vendor, who takes it and her cart next door to a room that looks like an indoor parking garage for sherbet carts. There, a man cuts dry ice and loads up her cart with hefty chunks that will keep the sherbet frozen for hours.

The vending carts, says Alfredo, a hardy 65-year-old with tanned skin, a broad, fleshy nose and thick eyebrows, are built from scratch here in this building. He rents them out for $1 a day. "There are about three or four different companies imitating me," says Alfredo, through a heavy accent. "But they have no license. I have everything by the book."

Alfredo sells about 10,000 gallons of sherbet a week, which is made on premises almost every day in the summer. The most popular flavor, coconut, is also their best. Made from coconut meat and milk, sugar and water, the ice has a rich, gritty consistency and is one of the only coconut desserts that does not taste like suntan lotion. In one gallon, there are about 20 servings of sherbet. "The more you give, the less you make, the less you give, the more you make," says Alfredo.

Today, prices can range anywhere from 50 cents to $1.50 for a cup. When Alfredo started his business in the late 60s, the same product was going for 5 cents and 7 cents.

Alfredo was somewhat vague as to why he started this business—before, he was a welder, a factory worker, a construction worker, among other professions. He says that the paucity of foods catering to the Spanish population had something to do with it.

"In the early 70s, we started with 10 vendors," says Alfredo. "We started in the South Bronx. We go directly to the neighborhood, because, you know, that's the easy way to do the business. To make a store is hard.

"We were making product by machine," says Alfredo. "We started with one machine at a time, then I bought another one, and little by little I got 12 machines. It took me a long time to get where I am; it did not happen overnight."

Today, Coco Helado vendors sell in Queens, Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and in some parts of the tri-state area.

By the time he purchased this building in 1978, Alfredo was still buying the fruit for his products—coconut, mango, banana—from a retail store that carried them on 116th St. and Park. "In the late 60s there weren't Spanish products. Now you can find Spanish products at any supermarket in the city."

This year, Delicioso Coco Helado has introduced a new product, the first to be sold in supermarkets—also Alfredo's first attempt to pick up slack in the winter when there is zero income: All-natural frozen fruit bars in passion fruit, piña colada, coconut and mango flavors are being sold $1 apiece, or $2.99 for a four-pack at such markets as C Town, Associated and Pioneer. o