A Hong Kong ice cream truck in Vancouver? Watt A Truck brings the city’s flavours to Canada
A new business in Vancouver called 'Watt A Truck' is recreating the nostalgic experience of Hong Kong's iconic ice cream trucks. The founders aim to celebrate Hong Kong culture by offering traditional soft-serve and local desserts to the Canadian community.
Why it matters
It illustrates how immigrant communities preserve and share cultural heritage through food and small business entrepreneurship.
In Vancouver, people hear the music first – “The Blue Danube” by Johann Strauss II – then see a red, white and blue patterned truck pulling up shortly after.
As impossible as it may seem, that can mean only one thing for people from Hong Kong – a Mister Softee truck is in town. Or is it?
Although it is not the same beloved ice cream dispenser – renamed Mobile Softee in 2010 – found in Hong Kong, Watt A Truck looks remarkably similar and offers nostalgic soft-serve ice cream.
“We wanted the truck to look like the Hong Kong truck; otherwise, there’s no point,” says co-founder Wayne Poon Wing-tai, 35, who immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong in 2009.
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