Soaring temperature and extreme humidity may be a bane for Vizagites this summer, but not for the ice cream vendors at R.K. Beach. In the past one week or so, the number of customers has more than doubled and ice cream vendors are seeing a steep surge in demand. In the three-km stretch of Visakha Museum to Naval Coastal Battery, there are at least 25 to 30 ice cream carts of brands like Amul, Kwality, Dinshaw’s, Cream Bell and Top N Town. The vendors say that due to the rising temperature they have been witnessing a lot of impulse sale, apart from the demand from tourists and visitors to the beach.
“I sold over 4,000 ice creams in a day during last weekend and this week we expect it to go up further because of the heat. Before the temperature shot up, our daily ice cream sale used to be around 1,000 to 1,500. But now, people buy ice creams even in the morning hours when they are passing by the beach road,” says Satyanarayana, an ice cream vendor of Cream Bell.
Vendors of the summer favourite -- ice ‘golas’ -- have been doing roaring business in the past one week. “We sell 500 to 600 ‘golas’ on Sundays as against 300 on other days. The business mostly picks up after sunset as during the day time a few people are venturing out due to the extreme heat,” says Sonu Kumar, who along with his elder brother have been running the business of ice golas from the past six years near The Park Hotel junction.
The ‘golas’ come in a variety of flavours ranging from Rs. 30 to Rs. 50 with the ‘kala khatta’ flavour being the most popular one. This season, a new flavour called ‘New Mumbai Special Dish Gola’ has been added to the menu.
The ‘malai golas’ and ice ‘chaat’ are also becoming quite a hit among youngsters.
Apart from ice creams and ice ‘golas’, sale of flavoured soda has also surged during the past week.
