We were lucky to catch up with Peter Jones recently and have shared our conversation below.

Peter, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the best thing you’ve ever seen (or done yourself) to show a customer that you appreciate them?

We opened in late 2019 so 2020 was going to be our first full year open for business and then the world was hit with Covid. When Covid hit and everything shut down we thought we were going to have to close the doors. We were setting up our shaved ice trailer at a local park in a neighborhood and business was extremely slow and then out of nowhere the local community started coming by getting shaved ice. This community saved us from closing down. In 2021 I wanted to give back to the community and decided to do a few movies in the park so with the support and generosity of one of our city council members, county commissioner, sheriffs department and PTA from an elementary school down from the park we were able to put this together as the movie rights was expensive to show the movies. We arranged for a few other food trucks to join us to help feed everyone who showed up. This was my way of saying thank you to our local community for all of their support and business.

Peter, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Peter Jones and I got into the food truck industry after 23 years of commercial/retail development. I worked as a Leasing Manager for large regional malls putting businesses/stores in malls that the company I worked for owned. In 2019 I decided it was time to retire and open my own business and that’s when all of this started. And I saw a post where someone was selling their shaved ice trailer and thought “why not, I live in Florida and it’s hot here”. I bought the trailer and started working on a name and creating a logo for my brand. What sets us apart from most of our competitors is we put all of energy in our quality of product of which we shave from solid 10 lb blocks of ice which gives the best texture and quality of ice where our competitors grind bag cubed ice that gives more of a crunchy watery texture. Customer service is also a big component in our business along with staying extremely visible on all social media platforms. We also make our own syrup daily in order to provide the best flavors around. By maintaining the quality of product, customer service and social media platforms, it has been the driving force of building our customer base of which enabled us to purchase a second trailer of larger size where we were able to add food with the shaved ice and that wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for our customers and community and that I’m extremely proud of!

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding for me is seeing the smiles on people’s faces and the compliments that we get on a regular basis from customers because at the end of the day without them there is no us!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Quality of product, customer service, consistency on engaging with customers and prospective customers on social media platforms daily and our big heart and passion working with churches, schools, nonprofit organizations

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Sneakytikishavedice1
• Facebook: Sneaky Tiki Shaved Ice
• Twitter: R

Image Credits

Peter Jones