PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Just in time for summer, a favorite vegan food truck has opened its own brick-and-mortar storefront on East Passyunk Avenue.
“We trick many children into eating fruit here,” said Kevin Kramer, owner of The Chilly Banana. He turns frozen bananas into a dessert that resembles soft-serve ice cream.
From the moment he tasted his first banana whip about nine years ago, Kramer was hooked.
“Then we started our food truck and we put all of our eggs in a basket,” he said, “all my bananas in a bunch.”
Since having a baby, he and his partner, Courtney Harding, put the food truck on hold to open a storefront at 932 E. Passyunk Ave.
Kramer buys about 800 pounds of bananas at a time — and waits for them to ripen.
“It’s got to be slightly speckled but not mushy,” he described the perfect banana.
Once ready, the bananas are peeled, frozen and juiced to order. Kramer has also been experimenting with mangoes.
“I would call the bananas more of an ice cream soft serve and I would call the mangoes more of a sorbet,” he said.
Using the banana or mango as a base, customers can add homemade, vegan toppings, like granola, fresh fruit, peanuts, chocolate chips and more. And, the entire dessert is dairy-free.
“Always a crunch, always a fruit,” he said. “Maybe a homemade sauce and definitely some coconut milk whipped cream to bring it all together.”
For more on The Chilly Banana, listen to the KYW Newsradio original podcast What’s Cooking on the Audacy app.