Owning an ice cream truck might seem like a childhood dream, but when gas costs $6 a gallon, it doesn’t feel like much of a treat.

Felix Tarnarider, who owns the Mister Softee Northern California franchise, said the extra cost of gas across the 17 trucks in his fleet is “a couple thousand” dollars each week. 

It costs about $100 in gas to drive from his depot in Fremont, spend eight or nine hours on a 10- to 15-mile route in San Francisco, then drive back. He estimates that his model of operating roving trucks means gas costs that are 25 to 30 times higher than those of a food truck that sells from a parked location. 

As the war in Iran rages on with no end in sight (opens in new tab), the flow of crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz has slowed to a trickle, causing gas prices to soar. The price of a gallon of regular gas in California has climbed 21% since May 2025, to $6.33, while diesel has jumped 42% to $7.68.

Tarnarider predicts that if gas prices remain high, he will raise the price of ice cream by 25 cents in September, but he has no plans to cancel or scale back routes, saying customers depend on his trucks being in their neighborhoods. 

“We need to make sure people can get their Mister Softee,” he said.

His trucks operate along 17 Bay Area routes. Demand in San Francisco steadily increases in January and peaks in September and October before dropping sharply in November. He picks routes based on a computer algorithm that analyzes sales data. The trucks often stop by parks and schools and may go closer to beaches during hot weather.

Another vendor, Jose Reyes, had grandparents in the ice cream industry in Mexico. An electrician by training, Reyes was inspired to pull together some investors, buy a fleet of trucks, and start a business, The Spot Mobile Ice Cream.

His Hayward-based company has a fleet of four vehicles and more than $500,000 in annual revenue, but the high fuel prices have been “hurting our pockets,” he said. 

He’s eating those costs in two ways: fueling the trucks that cruise around neighborhoods in Hayward and Cupertino, and with the diesel generators that run the all-important freezer drawers inside. 

If gas prices rise higher, Reyes said, he’ll be forced to cut down the quantity of strawberry horchata fraps and ube-flavored sundaes he serves customers. He’s responsible for the creation of new products, although he’s personally partial to cookie dough.

The $2 increase in gas prices means spending $200 every two days to fill up a truck’s tank. Multiply that across a fleet of trucks, and the costs start to accrue.  

“More trucks means more income, but as the phrase goes, more money, more problems,” Reyes said.

Soaring fuel costs are pushing him to convert his existing trucks to electric, but the cost is significant for a small business — around $50,000 each. He’s also planning to add two EVs to the fleet.

“We’re losing more money in a sense, but it’s causing us to move into the future with renewable energy,” Reyes said. 

For Mark Clifton Jr., soaring fuel prices are a business brain freeze.

Three of Clifton’s trucks are based in Fairfield and frequently drive 100 miles round trip to sports games and San Quentin State Prison. But when the revelry is gone, fill-ups are sobering. Spending on gas for vehicles and generators has increased from $500 a week last summer to between $700 and $1,000, depending on how many events he works.

“Diesel’s killing us,” he said.

It’s bad enough that he’s considering retiring the 1997 diesel truck, his biggest and most expensive to operate — it costs $300 to fill up — and switching to a gas-powered model. He’s even toying with the idea of installing solar panels on his trucks to freeze the Italian ice at events.

“We’re praying gas prices go down,” he said. “But otherwise, we’ll figure it out.”