It’s the harder side of soft serve.
Mister Softee has hired a team of private eyes in its ongoing battle with upstart competitor New York Ice Cream — with one investigator likening the companies’ rivalry to a “Mafia turf war.’’
“There are least five or six detectives that have worked on this case,” including some who have been threatened with metal pipes, said Darrin Giglio, chief investigator of North American Investigations, which was hired by Mister Softee to spy on the competition.
Giglio, a former Marine who worked with the Secret Service, and his crew keep tabs on New York Ice Cream trucks to make sure they are not masquerading as Mister Softee by playing the company’s unmistakable, sound-of-summer jingle or stealing its vanilla-soft-serve-swirl headed mascot, both of which they have done in the past, according to court records.
When Giglio is not tailing ice cream trucks, he tracks down missing persons and cheating spouses. Spying on frozen-treat sellers may seem like a piece-of-cake cake gig in comparison, but it’s actually as brutal as a mob case, he said.
“It’s like a Mafia turf war,’’ Giglio said. “My staff has been threatened. [New York Ice Cream workers] tried to grab cameras, came out with pipes. Of course, it didn’t work — my guys are former detectives.”
Mister Softee has been locked in an icy feud with New York Ice Cream since the upstart opened in 2013.
The rival company was founded by a group of former Softee drivers angry over franchising fees.
“Mister Softee got greedy,” dished New York Ice Cream puller Peter from his truck at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 46th Street on a recent warm Friday. “He wanted three times the fees. You pay for what? A song and a decal of a clown with a bow tie?”
The company charges a flat initial franchise fee to use the Softee brand — which includes rights to its mascot “Conehead” and ubiquitous jingle — then takes a cut of every cone sold, according to a 2011 franchise agreement.
New York Ice Cream started out as “Master Softee” in 2013. But a judge ruled that the company’s name and logo were unfairly biting into Mister Softee’s brand, so the rival was forced to change its name and stop using a logo nearly identical to “Conehead.”
The ruling also froze New York Ice Cream out of swaths of Midtown, but that order lapsed in late 2016, and now that the weather has thawed, New York Ice Cream is gobbling up business along busy Midtown sidewalks.
“We own Midtown,” Peter bragged, claiming the company has exclusive rights to sell in the heart of Manhattan.
Owners of Mister Softee and New York Ice Cream did not respond to requests for comment.
But Giglio said Peter is twisting the facts.
“They’re gaining [territory] through intimidation — there is no legal exclusive right,” said Giglio, who added that Mister Softee drivers are too “afraid” to venture into Midtown. “Who wants the aggravation?”
Giglio said he has been assaulted by a driver who snatched his phone while he took pictures on a public sidewalk, though he never filed a police report.
A man who answered the phone at Mister Softee’s Bronx garage also claimed that New York Ice Cream is using strong-arm tactics but declined to elaborate.
“I see more New York Ice Cream trucks every day,” lamented Mister Softee franchisee Heli Vasquez, 49, whose family runs three trucks on the Upper East Side.
New York Ice Cream’s gains are palpable — the company had just 16 street-vendor licenses in 2014 and now has 46, according to city Health Department records.
Mister Softee still holds 126 of the 228 permits the city issued in 2017, records show.
Additional reporting by Joe Parziale