You’re settled into your chair at Siesta Beach, enjoying the gentle Gulf breezes, when you hear it—that high, tinkling melody, instantly familiar from childhood summers. The ice cream truck! Except the music seems to be coming from the water. You begin to wonder if maybe you’ve had too much sun…
But no, you’re not hallucinating. That’s Tropicool, the floating ice cream boat that has been turning heads—and delighting beachgoers of all ages—along the Sarasota coastline since last summer.
The idea was born from a familiar parental dilemma. Joe Prezio and his family were spending a day at the beach when his daughter asked for ice cream. Nobody wanted to pack up and leave. “We realized how convenient it would be if ice cream could somehow come directly to people enjoying a day at the beach,” Joe says. His middle son took it a step further: What if the boat actually looked like an ice cream truck?
That conversation became Tropicool—a one-of-a-kind operation that Joe runs with his sons Julien and Dom. His wife, Alina, handles marketing, branding, and social media, where the boat has developed a following that now extends well beyond Florida. Their youngest daughter Isabella, 11, contributes ideas for video content and is, Joe notes, usually the first to weigh in on new trends and creative concepts.
“We see kids jumping up and down with excitement, people waving and sometimes even dancing when they spot us. It’s not just children—people of all ages light up. Hearing ‘This is the highlight of our vacation’ never gets old.”
Tropicool typically cruises the waters around Siesta Key, Sarasota, and area beaches. “We remain flexible throughout the day,” Joe says. “Depending on weather and water conditions, we may make stops at sandbars and other popular areas along the way.”
The boat carries 56 different frozen treats—Chipwich, Strawberry Shortcake bars, and SpongeBob popsicles among the top sellers—along with drinks, chips, dairy-free and gluten-free options, and natural fruit bars. But the product list almost feels beside the point. What people are really coming for is the experience.
“We see kids jumping up and down with excitement, people waving and sometimes even dancing when they spot us,” Joe says. “It’s not just children—people of all ages light up. Hearing ‘This is the highlight of our vacation’ never gets old.”
Behind that joy is a logistical operation most customers never see: pre-dawn prep, careful weight distribution, weather monitoring, daily restocking, and maintenance of a vessel Joe essentially designed from scratch—novel enough that the family has filed a design patent on the boat.
A second boat is currently being built for Anna Maria Island, with franchise inquiries already arriving from across the country and abroad. But for Joe and his family, the vision has always been bigger than the bottom line. “We’re not just serving ice cream,” he says. “We’re creating experiences and memories, building something together as a family, and sharing it with the community we love.”
