Metro

Cone biz’s vanilla gorillas

Leon Zaid
What he drives: Mister Softee truck
What he sells: Soft-serve ice cream for about $3 a pop
War story: Alleges he was confronted by a fellow Mister Softee man who lost his cool and pointed a gun at him in Midtown. “They walked up to the truck and said, ‘Next time we see you here, we
shoot you,’” he claimed. “They are the Mafia. They are one big Mafia.”

Leon Zaid
What he drives: Mister Softee truck
What he sells: Soft-serve ice cream for about $3 a pop
War story: Alleges he was confronted by a fellow Mister Softee man who lost his cool and pointed a gun at him in Midtown. “They walked up to the truck and said, ‘Next time we see you here, we
shoot you,’” he claimed. “They are the Mafia. They are one big Mafia.” (Astrid Stawiarz)

The streets are running red — with cherry ice cream!

A turf war between Mister Softee trucks and rival ice-cream and frozen-yogurt peddlers has exploded this summer, leaving a trail of sabotaged trucks, bloody noses and even death threats.

“It got ugly fast,” said a 21-year-old Yogo frozen-yogurt driver of a recent run he had with a fuming team of Mister Softee men on Madison Avenue.

“One double-parked right next to me, trying to distract me, while the other guy cut off my brakes with a crowbar!” the first-year fro-yo slinger said of a tense 15-minute episode.

“They tried to do it [so] we wouldn’t notice. That was the point — so when we leave we wouldn’t come back again. If you see a Mister Softee truck, you know bad things are coming!”

The Yogo vendor declined to use his real name for fear of reprisal, and cops were kept out of it, said the rookie, as the two competing bosses resolve matters privately.

While ice-cream trucks have been fighting each other over turf for years all over the city, for no specific reason anyone could point to, the violence has been kicked up a notch this year, especially in Midtown, which one vendor described as a “battleground.”

“[The allegations don’t] shock me,” said Jim Conway, vice president of Mister Softee.

“I know the people involved. They might be selling yogurt, but they’re not tree-huggers over there — they’re a bunch of street-smart guys.”

The bad blood between Mister Softee and Yogo goes back to 2010, when a rogue group of Softees quit and founded the rival company.

“Yogos are former Mister Softee franchisees, and they’ve been involved in multiple fights — both as Softees and now as their own business,” said Conway.

“All the ice-cream dealers know each other intimately, so these guys know each other and know exactly what they’re doing. That Yogo kid is being told exactly where to go, and his boss knows exactly what he’s doing.”

The friction is not limited to rival vendors: at least one ice-cream man claimed to be the victim of Softee-on-Softee violence.

“They walked up to the truck and said, ‘Next time we see you here, we shoot you,’ ” said Leon Zaid, 34, a seven-year Mister Softee man who said he had parked his truck in Columbus Circle recently and was greeted by gun-toting Softee thugs from another truck.

“They are the Mafia. They are one big Mafia.”

Conway was not amused by the characterization. “I find the statement insulting. I would have no clue as to how the Mafia operates,” he sniffed.

But as in the mob, money is behind the violence.

A Mister Softee truck can rake in as much as $1,500 on a good day — all cash.

Many owners do not ride along. Instead they pay a driver about $300 and an assistant $150, but when a rival truck muscles in on the same block, that can cut the take in half, sources said.

Owners also have to shell out $200 a day on product and a $3,000 annual “royalty” paid to Mister Softee for the privilege of being part of the franchise. Trucks start at as much as $25,000 and can cost much more, according to sources.

“They get a spot and they don’t want to relinquish it,” a law-enforcement source said of the seething rivalry between ice-cream vendors. “God forbid one of them gets sick or something and they leave their spot for one day and some other vendor takes his place,” the source said.

Vendors insist their lives are at stake.

“It’s really hard [in Midtown],” explains 28-year old Ben Van Leeuwen, originator of the gourmet ice-cream trucks that bear his last name.

“That’s where the death threats from Mister Softee come in.”

His brother and co-founder, Pete Van Leeuwen, 35, remains vigilant. When asked where their trucks are parked at night, he momentarily flinched: “I can’t tell you where, for security reasons,” he said.

Veterans of the ice-cream wars said there are unwritten rules that must be followed.

“The routes are [based on] a gentleman’s agreement,” said Maria Campanella, a second-generation Good Humor operator in Bensonhurst, who says that when you buy a truck, you also, in effect, buy its route.

“I have my route, you have your route, and we stay away from each other’s route.”