Desert Chill – ice cream vans in Abu Dhabi.

The van that came to meet us!

There is something really joyous in the sound of the ice cream trucks coming to your neighbourhood during the hot summer months.
Imagine my excitement when I realised that they have ice cream trucks in Abu Dhabi too, thanks to a company called Desert Chill (also on Facebook).

They are slightly different from the ice cream vans in the UK, as they don’t serve soft cones but they sell Algida ice creams (which is known as Wall’s in the UK). Think cornetto, magnum and so on. Yum.

The ice creams available.

It took me a little while to work out how it all goes down, but they answered all my questions with incredible patience!

So, basically: the Desert Chill company has a fleet of vans roaming around Abu Dhabi. If we fancy an ice cream, we email/call them and say: “Can one of your vans come to (example: my street) at (11am?) on (Saturday?). This is my name and phone number.”

And they will tell you: “YES, we will have a van coming to see you at your preferred time and place!”

Now, this is going to cost an arm and a leg, right? Having a van coming to your house, just because you fancy an ice cream!?
Well, this is the best part: it does not. If you call the van and then just want to buy one single ice cream, that’s fine. There is no minimum spending limit, and you literally just get what you want and then bid goodbye!
We bought a cornetto and a twister (19 AED in total) and we were not charged a penny more!

The reason for this is that they have a lot of vans going around the city anyway, so to make a slight detour it does not change their routine much, hence they don’t have to charge you extra and you don’t have to go around looking for them! Is this not great?

Of course, if you have a party and you want the van to hang around for a while, then you have to spend at least 150 AED.

They have a general schedule with areas/routes (see image below) and some kind-of fixed appointments (such as on Thursdays lunch time next to the TwoFour54 building) but mostly they are happy to come to you if you call them.

We tried to call a van this morning, and the driver was bang on time, very polite and friendly and we left happy and with a yummy ice cream in our hand!
With the hot months coming, this definitely won’t be the last time we call them in!