For Austin Yocco, inspiration came during a family trip to Scotland last summer to visit some friends. On the beaches in and around historic St. Andrews, he saw the booming business being done by The Cheesy Toast Shack and Salt & Pine Creperie and had a sweet idea.
“We were sitting out there one summer day that looked like a South Georgia winter day,” Yocco recalled, “and they were selling heaps of ice cream from this cool little shack.”
When his family was back in Savannah, they wanted some soft serve but could not find any nearby.
Downtown, south of Broughton Street is a frozen dessert desert with the exceptional exception of Doki Doki, and other than a few DQs, only Jeremiah’s, way down on Eisenhower Drive, serves the soft stuff. Culver’s serves its incredible frozen custard, though even that is not quite the same confection.
“So we decided, ‘It looks like we’ve got to get to work,’” said Yocco.
The ‘we’ is Yocco and his father, Dean, and what they have created is The Cone Ranger, an immaculately custom-built horse trailer that is their mobile soft serve ice cream business.
And they are ready to ride your way to save the day.
NOT ‘SILVER’ BUT FOREST GREEN AND SADDLE BROWN
Austin Yocco explained that the brand’s name came first, which informed the overarching cowboy motif, and he and his dad designed the mobile ice creamery to match, intentionally choosing a horse trailer to be its home.
“You can’t get a rusty old horse trailer for under $15,000,” Austin Yocco said. To bring a used hauler up to code and outfit it with all the equipment “would have been a fifty, sixty-thousand-dollar investment,” he figured.
Instead, the father and son had their horse trailer custom-constructed in China. It was ordered back in February of this year, and they worked with the Chatham County Health Department for about six months as the unit was being bespoke built.
Come July, the forest green trailer topped with a saddle brown roof arrived in Savannah, still as separate pieces in a pallet.
“That was an adventure, too,” said Dean Yocco.
“It was almost a kit,” Austin Yocco said. “We had to put the tongue in there. We had to put the axles and tires on. We had to retrofit the sinks.”
“We had to mount the AC,” his dad added and leaned over to show me a photo. “There it is pulling out, fully assembled.”
Much of their work over the last month was retrofitting equipment in the 50-square-foot interior to meet codes and to supply power for the soft serve machine itself.
“Working out the kinks, you could say,” Austin Yocco concluded with a smile.
The Western theme is stylishly unmistakable in the color scheme and the cursive wrangler’s rope signage. On the service counter sit little wooden wagon wheels and a ceramic boot for tips.
“Should things take off, we’d like to get a mobile unit that’s self-driving,” said Austin Yocco. “Hopefully, we get some traction and can expand.”
When that happens, the design of that vehicle will remain similar to the horse trailer, of course.
OUT OF THE STABLES
The Cone Ranger’s inaugural appearance was at Sandfly Flower Shop, which is owned by a friend of the Yoccos.
“August 10, my dad’s 95th birthday,” Dean Yocco said proudly and then explained a possible marketing strategy related to that first pop-up location: wedding showers and receptions, as well as birthday parties, bar and bat mitzvahs, and other family events.
Though neither father nor son had any restaurant trade in their shared past, there has been plenty of family enjoyment of food.
“My grandpa is an excellent cook, and we always use his recipes,” said Austin Yocco. “My aunts do a lot of baking. We’re always in the kitchen but never anything commercial.”
In truth, operating a soft-serve machine is not riding a bull for eight seconds and requires no formal culinary experience other than honing one’s technique: pour the ready mix into the hopper, and the machine does the rest.
“It does have quite a power demand,” Dean Yocco said of the ice cream maker that has two compressors and two augers.
“It benefits our home in the event that we have one of our wonderful hurricanes,” he joked. “We’ve got a backup generator. There’s an unforeseen added benefit.”
The Cone Ranger offers classic soft serve chocolate, vanilla, and twist and is using the Foxy Family’s cold brew - courtesy of owner Jenn Jenkins, who happens to be one of Dean Yocco’s neighbors - for a cowpoke affogato. Even pup cups are available for furry friends.
“We talked to Taylor Machines and went through a couple different options,” Austin Yocco explained. “Some wouldn’t handle the demand. Obviously, size was an issue, but we were able to find a machine that would fit but would still be able to serve large events.”
Only a few weeks into the mobile ice cream rodeo, the Yoccos have not yet hit their max CPH (cones per hour) but are building a following on the socials and counting on word of mouth to grow the business.
FATHER AND SON PARDNERS
“Don’t know any different or better,” Dean Yocco said of their shared lifetimes spent in Savannah, flashing a winning smile. Austin Yocco grew up on East 53rd Street in what is still the family home, and both are graduates of Benedictine Military School.
A Marine engineer, Austin Yocco explained that he “works ten weeks on, ten weeks off.”
“I’ve been on the high seas for about fifteen years now, and I’m kind of sick of sleeping in a bunk bed,” he added with a laugh. “I was looking for an exit strategy and a way to spend more time with my family.”
He started “brainstorming, talking to my dad, getting him involved.”
A graduate of Armstrong College with a math degree, Dean Yocco worked as an electrician on Hilton Head before moving into sales of safety equipment and industrial supplies, which “morphed into safety management with a couple construction companies.”
At 52, he figured that he wanted to climb and hang billboards, and both he and his son worked at Lamar before Dean Yocco was with The Colonial Group for six-plus years.
He smiled and said that his most recent career move “upriver got a little sweeter.”
“He’s the Sugar Man,” said his son, mirroring his dad’s smile.
“I work for U.S. Sugar Savannah Refinery,” said Dean Yocco. “I’m a safety, health, and environmental specialist there.”
I could not help but look at their ice cream trailer: sugar.
“Makes sense, right?” Dean said, still smiling.
He said that he had recently mentioned The Cone Ranger to one of U.S. Sugar’s vice presidents, who immediately suggested a possible employee appreciation event, and he has also brainstormed setting up shop at the site’s contractor base for some of the company’s vendors.
“Nice,” said his son.
WHERE THE ICE CREAM CONES ROAM
Earlier that Saturday morning, the Yoccos were serving cones and cups at Islands Farmers’ Market, and in the afternoon, the horse trailer was tied up at Hull Park, though cloudy weather kept long lines of kid customers away.
“We’re looking for more places to get into, particularly downtown,” said Austin Yocco. “It would be nice to get down there with all the tourism.”
“Unfortunately, he won’t be here on March 17,” his father said with another smile, alluding to another of his son’s returns to sea. “Now that we’re entrepreneurs, we need to buy a little bit of green dye and figure out how to make that work.”
Their Application for right-of-way is “in motion right now and should be coming through next week,” per Austin Yocco, and both expressed a hope to work with Donato’s Pizza and Midtown Bar & Grill, owned by another 53rd Streeter, Will Poston.
When Austin Yocco heads back to his maritime duties in late September, his dad will take operation’s reins: his words not mine.
In addition to setting up the horse trailer at Islands Farmers’ Market every Saturday and at more Sandfly Flower Shop pop-ups, The Cone Ranger will be soft-serving at the Savannah Bananas K Club celebration on September 28, at Service Brewing on October 31, and at Cohen’s Retreat on November 9.
“Things are starting to line up,” Austin Yocco said.
The Cone Ranger can be followed at Cone Ranger (Facebook), @the_cone_ranger (Instagram), and www.theconeranger.com, where pop-up events can be scheduled.
