Mobile shaved ice vendor draws in local crowds

Published 12:24 am Saturday, October 10, 2015

No need to wait for the fair or a festival to enjoy a frosty, refreshing sno cone now that the portable Sno Biz building is making the rounds in Bainbridge.

Jimmy and Kasey Freeman of Cairo are the owners. They are permitted through the City of Bainbridge, and the city requires the truck to change locations every 15 days.

They began parking the white A-frame wooden building in a lot next to Simply Southern near WalMart the first of September. This week they are located next to Bella’s Boutique on Shotwell Street. They also trucked out to the Cross-country meet a couple of Saturdays ago.

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Watch for their next location, as weather permitting they will stay around through the first week of November.

Freeman, a trucker, said when his business got a little slow they looked around for ways to supplement the family income. They found their first sno cone building through an owner in Cairo. Feeman purchased it and placed it in Camilla on August 1. When another unit became available he purchased it for Bainbridge.

“We got a bit of a slow start this year, but we plan to get going earlier next year.” he added.

Although he holds a full-time job as a truck driver, he describes the sno cone business as being nearly full-time in itself. The Freemans mix all the 20-25 different flavors purchased from Sno-Biz, a national company. They clean and sanitize the equipment and building daily and pull it to a location in preparation for opening at 2:30 – 3 p.m. to catch the after-school crowd.

No matter their location, their customers find them and there is always a line waiting to be served. They usually remain open until about 8 or 9 p.m.

The Freemans have four children, a daughter 20, a student at BSC, 19 year-old son who runs the Camilla operation, and two girls, 15 and 11.  He hopes they will become more involved with the business next year. Macie, age 11 and her cousin Chaney Johnson, 12 came along this week  to help keep up with the demand.

Kasey Freeman is a housewife and photographer, who has always been involved with things at her children’s school. For years they had provided a small cotton candy machine and sno cone machine at school events.

Just in case you are wondering which of the 20-25 flavors is the best seller, Freeman said without a doubt Bainbridge prefers the blue cotton candy flavor.