By Liz Tracy | MiamiNewTimes.com
Felecia Hatcher is a Palm Beach native, former Wii slinger, and a true ice cream lover. She and her husband Derick Pearson co-own Feverish one of the longest running “food” trucks in the area, selling frozen desserts. They just introduced six new Feverish carts around the city, taking their sweets to unexplored and harder-to-get-to-in-a-truck places. The look and vibe is fun and funky — and ice cream’s the perfect way to bring down your body temp on a steamy Miami eve.
As the weather warms, you’ll be seeing more of Feverish at the food truck meet-ups. They’ll likely be at the Biscayne Plaza (NE 81st Street and Biscayne Boulevard, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.) on Thursday afternoons and on Tuesday evenings at the North End Biscayne Triangle Truck Roundup (127th Street and Biscayne Boulevard, 5:30 to 10 p.m.). They’ll be parked at Las Olas Farmers Market this Sunday, the Jackson Memorial Hospital Farmer’s Market on Thursday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the Wilton Manors Farmers Market in March.
New Times: What did you do before you started Feverish?
Felecia Hatcher: I had a career of a little over five years as a marketing manager. I traveled around the country putting together experiential marketing campaigns, and right before Feverish, I was working for Nintendo.
That sounds awesome. Did you get free games and stuff?
The better part of the job was playing video games all day and getting people excited about playing video games, but it’s experiential marketing. So, it was on the event marketing side, where I lived on the road, just like a music tour manager, but it was actually a product that we were promoting. We did a big budget tour, playing video games around the country, putting together bigger than life events so people could get introduced to the product and buy it.
So did you decide to start this mobile unit because you were used to life on the road?
Yeah, pretty much, I just figured out a long time ago, I’m not one of those people that can work in an office. Hence the job that I had before that, you kind of have Feverish where you’re out all the time, but we don’t really have walls, our offices are mobile.
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You’re one of the older food trucks around.
We’ve been around since 2008. We’ve been trucking along for a while.
I’ve heard you guys often give out free ice cream, is this true, or is this just a rumor?
That’s true. Sometimes we do it on our own, but a lot of times companies partner with us and they may sponsor the free ice cream giveaway while we’re also promoting their brand or like their new artist. Like, Universal Music is a recent partnership, and when their band Juanes came out around Art Basel time, we drove around the city giving away free ice cream, as well as free Juanes posters, and ice cream that had Juanes wristbands wrapped around each one, and popsicles. Fun and different ways to kind of promote their brands and at the same time get to hook people up with free ice cream. It’s not an urban legend, it’s definitely true!
What’s your favorite ice cream?
Oh, man! Way too many. I love Mexican paletas, hence the direction we’re moving in. I love ice cream sandwiches really. There’s a company out in California called Diddy Riese. I don’t know if you’re familiar with them. You can walk in, you can pick whatever kind of cookie you want, you can pick whatever kind of ice cream you want in the middle, and you know you just kind of turn into a five year old kid: I need to eat this ice cream sandwich and hold it together. So, for me, that’s like the perfect combination.
You really love ice cream, you didn’t just decide to start selling ice cream.
It’s a minor obsession, slash, I wouldn’t say fetish, but obsession with ice cream. I love it. I love discovering new flavors. Especially growing up in South Florida, where it’s always hot, I love it. It’s the coolest thing ever. Literally, I guess!
Literally! Any new flavors you’ve come up with?
Yeah, we’ve introduced a few different flavors over the last few weeks. We do a banana chocolate sea salt that people are starting to really, really like. So we’re excited about that. We didn’t know how people were going to take it. But they like it a lot. We did a cucumber and honey dew melon recently. Last week, actually. And so that one’s doing pretty good as well and then you know with the season coming up. Especially spring and summertime, we hope try some fun stuff as well.
That sounds delicious. My mouth is watering!
http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/shortorder/2011/02/feverishs_felecia_hatcher_on_g.php
