‘Everybody loves Angelo. . . . I don’t sell junk. I don’t give my customers anything I wouldn’t eat myself.’ : Greengrocer Stocks a Movable Feast

Angelo Locricchio walked up the center of his produce mart, carving knife in one hand and cantaloupe in the other, belting out the same spiel every time he greeted a new batch of customers:

“Here, taste this melon,” he said, laughing and handing out chunks of the fruit. “It’s sweeter than my mother-in-law before I married her ugly daughter.”

Simultaneously chuckling and slurping the juicy morsels, several of the shoppers reached to buy somewhat bruised but apparently tasty cantaloupes piled on a shelf inside Angelo’s Bus Produce.

Bus Produce?

Yes, Locricchio, born of Italian immigrant parents, is the self-proclaimed “pioneer of bus produce” in the San Fernando Valley. He and his son, Tony, operate the business from a big, bright orange vehicle he parks wherever his customers are, be it a posh business district, a corner meat market or in front of an office building.

Started at an Early Age

“People might think this bus is a joke, but it’s no joke,” the 65-year-old Locricchio said as he parked behind a silver Mercedes on a street in Warner Center Business Park. “It’s hard work. This is something you have to be born into, believe me.”

At age 4, as the large, talkative Locricchio tells it, he sold vegetables from a red wagon to neighbors in the Italian sections of Detroit. At age 15, he graduated to a Model A truck. He has spent his life either delivering or selling produce from trucks and stores.

For the past five years, Angelo, as his customers call him, says he has found fulfillment beckoning customers to board his bus and buy artichokes and cantaloupes, tomatoes and potatoes.

“I used to go to houses. I would drive up and down the streets, but nobody was home,” Locricchio said. “So I said to myself, ‘Why not go to where they work?’ ”

Weekly Schedule

On Monday, Locricchio drives his produce bus to Saugus. Tuesday, there are business areas in Van Nuys and Tarzana. Wednesday, he hits Ventura Boulevard. Thursday, Locricchio pulls up in front of Warner Center office buildings and the state Department of Motor Vehicles in Canoga Park. On weekends, he finds customers at the Winnetka Swap Meet.

When Locricchio’s customers--businessmen, computer data analysts, hairdressers, gardeners--talk about him, they sound as if they are auditioning for a supermarket commercial.

“When you eat one of Angelo’s tomatoes, you are tasting a good, strong tomato,” stressed Judy Stiefvater, a data processor. “When we see the bus pull up it’s vroom--everyone makes a beeline out.”

“If the stuff is a little old, he tells us. If it has spots, he’ll cut off a piece to taste before we buy it,” said Michelle Engle, a State Compensation Insurance Fund employee. “He’s fantastic; he’s sweet.”

Like the Good Old Days

“He harasses women, but he’s all right, “ another young woman joked.

“He reminds me of the good old days, when the customer wasn’t a stranger,” said Emily Cicciari, operator of Avante Hair Fashion in Canoga Park. “Besides, I can talk to him in Italian.” Locricchio planted a big kiss on Cicciari’s cheek.

Locricchio, who keeps up a running conversation with everyone who boards the bus, seems to expect rave reviews.

“Everybody loves Angelo,” he exclaimed. “And you want to know why? I don’t sell junk. I don’t give my customers anything I wouldn’t eat myself.”

Trip to Produce Mart

The trick of his trade, Locricchio said, is knowing how to go to market.

At 5 a.m. every day, he emerges from his Northridge apartment building and meets his partner and 21-year-old son Tony. After a $20 visit to the gas station, the two are barreling their produce bus down the Hollywood Freeway just as the sun has risen above the mountains.

Armed with a list of vegetables in hand and a wad of cash in his pocket, Locricchio parades through the maze of stands at the Central Produce Market in downtown Los Angeles, proud that he knows many wholesalers on a first-name basis.

“I’m walking, I’m looking, I’m hearing, trying to beat the prices,” Locricchio explained. He seemed troubled because strawberry prices are high this morning--$4 to $6 for a 12-pint flat. Earlier in the week he had paid $1.50 to $2.

Sharp Bargainer

He settled on 10 flats of top-grade berries for $3 apiece. “If I’m going to pay the price, it’s going to be for candy,” Locricchio said, his favorite word for prime produce.

“But I nailed that guy on these,” he said. “After he agreed to sell for $3, I told him I’d take 10. Last time I bought 84 flats from him. He thought I would do the same today.”

One wholesaler, Jeremy Chaika, saw Angelo peering at his boxes of grapefruit.

“You need grapefruit, Angelo?” Chaika shouted. “I got grapefruit, ruby-red grapefruit for you, real cheap.”

After cutting up and tasting several grapefruit, Locricchio bought 10 cases for $2 apiece. “Someone else tried to sell me 16 pounds of grapes for $20, but I saw them and knew they would rot when they got out of refrigeration,” Locricchio said as his son carried away crate after crate of grapefruit. “I couldn’t believe they were trying to push junk on a guy like me.

Hangs Homemade Signs

After he figured out what he’d have to charge for the day’s purchases, Locricchio and his son hung homemade signs--cucumbers 4 for $1, avocados 10 for $1, tomatoes 3 pounds for $1--on the bus window. A banner advertising strawberries, 3 boxes for $1, was splashed across the sides of the bus.

By 10:30 a.m. Angelo was driving over the Cahuenga Pass. He explained that after decades of working in the vegetable business, bus produce is his best idea. He bought the old school bus several years ago for $3,000.

With no rent and little overhead, he can sell his produce for less. The money, he said, “is as much as an average worker makes.” He and his son each take home more than $200 a week, he said.

Doesn’t Hide Anything

Angelo hand-sorts through all his vegetables, throwing out the bruised and molded. Pocked or spotted tomatoes that Angelo’s instincts tell him are still good are placed at the top of the basket for the customer to see.

“Our slogan is take the best, leave the rest. If a customer thinks they they’re getting a bad tomato, I tell them, take another.”

When Angelo’s Bus Produce pulled in front of a Ventura Boulevard plaza with shops with names like Le Yogurt, Optique Boutique and Au Croissant D’or, a tanned young man ran out of the nearby Hot Dog and Sandwich Co.

“I always buy from Angelo. He picks out the best stuff all the time,” said Bob Brait, running back to his shop with a flat of tomatoes.

While Tony carried a 50-pound sack of onions to Brait, Angelo stood at the front of his door, with a fresh chunk of cantaloupe in hand.

“Hey, I’ll sell to ya’, I’ll sell to ya’, come on up,” he said to a man who stopped and stared at the bus. “Here, taste this, it’s sweeter than. . . .”