Alex Arteaga, owner of local ice cream truck Palagis Ice Cream Company, delivered a book talk on Monday at the Brown Bookstore. In conversation with Valley Breeze editor LuzJennifer Martinez, Arteaga detailed his motivation for writing “Searching for Peter Palagi: America’s First Ice Cream Man and Father of the Ice Cream Truck.”
Arteaga has owned Palagis Ice Cream Company — a 129-year-old ice cream truck company based in Pawtucket — since 1998, developing a deep appreciation for the business. “When you say ‘ice cream,’ people’s eyes light up,” Arteaga said during the talk.
Palagis Ice Cream, which claims to be the oldest ice cream truck company in America, consists of a 21-truck fleet that drives across Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts each summer. They sell ice cream, frozen lemonade and “novelties” like popsicles, with the mission of “delivering thousands of smiles a day,” according to their website. Under Arteaga’s ownership, Palagis has also expanded to a Pawtucket ice cream shack that offers live music during the summer.
Arteaga was inspired to research the history of Palagis after experiencing a part of the company’s history himself. After weathering a pandemic, opening a seasonal ice cream shack and expanding the Palagis fleet over more than 25 years of ownership, “I started feeling a little different” about Palagis’s history, Arteaga said. “A lot has happened that I made happen.”
Arteaga resonated deeply with Peter Palagi Sr. — the man who founded Palagi’s Ice Cream Company in 1896 — and his immigrant background. Like Palagi, who emigrated to the United States from Italy, Arteaga is also an immigrant: He moved from Colombia to Providence with his parents and seven siblings in 1976.
Arteaga started pouring his life into the Palagis business. Selling ice cream began as “just a job,” but it ultimately transformed into his passion. Driven by the belief that “everything has a story,” he felt inspired to tell the tale of the much-beloved Palagis company from the inside.
His book aims to emphasize that the Palagis business isn’t just about spreading happiness but about grit and hard work, Arteaga explained during his talk. He felt that he shared an “entrepreneurial spirit” with Peter Palagi and had “concentrated 100%” of his effort into the business over his many years of ownership.
“Everything has a purpose,” Arteaga said. “Ice cream has a purpose.”
