A sweet ride: Sugar Chic Mobile Creamery hits the road

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect the correct purchase place of the trailer.

The latest eatery to join the food-truck trend is Sugar Chic Creamery, with a 20-foot trailer customers can walk through to choose their flavors -- "like a miniature Sugar Chic," said co-owner Jessica Rhodes, complete with 12 ice cream flavors -- and a chandelier.

The Sugar Chic food truck takes the overall idea of the shop at 137 N. Main St. in Cape Girardeau and takes it on the road. They'll travel all over, Rhodes said, from Perry to Stoddard counties, and west to St. Francois County.

Each location had its own process for receiving permits, which took time to navigate.

But they've already held some events in the short time they've been operating.

Nick and Angie Frese with their daughter, Clara, enter the Sugar Chic Creamery trailer Wednesday in Cape Girardeau.Fred Lynch

They also have a mobile cart, Rhodes said, which they've taken to some teacher appreciation events.

"We've also gotten a lot of calls for weddings," Rhodes said.

Rhodes said the food truck concept was an evolving idea. "We are just always looking for the next step," Rhodes said, so instead of another brick and mortar location, "we decided to go mobile with it."

Sugar Chic's signature look is more industrial in feel than traditional, and Rhodes said that's deliberate -- it's about chicness.

The trailer itself, they bought at MO Great Dane in Benton, Missouri, Rhodes said, after a lot of research, and working with another truck at an event in Pennsylvania.

The ice cream itself comes from a creamery in Wisconsin, Rhodes explained.

"Once we got 6,000 pounds in one trip," she said.

"My favorite part is seeing people's faces when they taste our ice cream," Rhodes said. "There's pure happiness in their faces. It's just fun."

Rhodes, who is a nurse, and Clark, who owns a cleaning business, said they might be looking to make ice cream their full-time job soon enough.

The family time is important to both of them, they said.

"My sister and I are best friends," Rhodes said. "We do it all together."

mniederkorn@semissourian.com

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