The ice cream men cometh

Mark R. Madler

Within one minute of being given a soft-serve ice cream cone, Warner

Bros. Studios firefighter Joe Segreto had finished it, cone and all,

and sat back to wait for his two teammates to down their quickly

melting cones.

Segreto’s team came out the eventual winner in an ice cream eating

contest on a hot Tuesday against three members of the Burbank Fire

Department in which both teams had money donated in their names to

the charity of their choice.

Afterward, the two teams joked with each other, especially about

Segreto’s ability to down ice cream so quickly.

“If that was a marketable skill, you’d be a millionaire,” Burbank

firefighter Brad Royal told Segreto.

The contest, sponsored by the Wienerschnitzel hot dog restaurant

at 3203 Alameda Ave., was the second between the two departments.

Last year, Burbank came out on top in a chili tug of war.

Wienerschnitzel was celebrating National Ice Cream Month with the

introduction of Tastee-Freez ice cream desserts at the nearly 200

restaurants in Southern California.

Having a Tastee-Freez ice cream is a reason to visit a

Wienerschnitzel, said Ron Phillips, co-owner of the Alameda location

for six years.

“We get a good crowd here,” Phillips said of his restaurant,

located across the street from the NBC studios. “We get a lot of

visitors from out of town.”

In the contest, the firefighters had to each eat a soft serve ice

cream cone, an Oreo Freezee and a sundae.

Royal was drafted onto the Burbank team because of his bragging of

how much he likes to eat.

“Eating ice cream fast isn’t as much fun as eating ice cream

slow,” Royal said.

The Warner Bros. team donated $800 to the Lance Armstrong

Foundation, an organization assisting cancer patients. The Burbank

team gave their $500 check to the Children’s Burn Foundation, a San

Fernando Valley facility providing medical attention for children

burned through neglect, abuse or accident.

The team chose Armstrong’s foundation because they see the

bicyclist as a good role model for themselves and children, said

Warner Bros. fire Capt. Bill Houck.

President Ronald Reagan declared July as National Ice Cream Month

in 1984.