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.