The community will now have to look further than Flagstaff Hill to get their Normies Soft Serve fix from Norman Lees. Photo: Keeli Dyson.
An iconic ice cream van which has called Wollongong Lighthouse home for decades has farewelled Flagstaff Hill and is now finding other ways to bring delicious treats to the community.
Normies Soft Serve Ice Creams had been a summer staple for more than 20 years. However, Wollongong City Council has awarded the tender for the spot to another business.
The iconic pink van parked at the top of Flagstaff Hill has been a must-stop spot for locals and visitors.
“The best part of the job is the people,” Normies’ owner Norman Lees said.
“It’s just meeting all the different people and I have a bit of a joke and a chat.
“A lot of it is return customers – there’s one guy who lives in America but his family is here so every five years he comes back and then he’ll come up to the ice cream van and have a chat because that’s where he feels home.”
Norman was a mechanic by trade who then went on to engineering and teaching, but after working with and fixing the vans of his friend and fellow ice cream vendor Ken from Ken’s Cones, he decided to buy his own.
Over the years, all four of his children have taken their turn manning a van, with his son still working in the family business.
And they became part of the lives of many other families as they’ve grown.
“I remember there were girls that used to get one cup and split it into two because they were just little girls, now those same girls are coming up to get an ice cream and they’re driving,” Norman said.
His priority has always been ensuring the ice creams are delicious without breaking the bank.
“The first thing that counts is the quality and we always use pure dairy product,” Norman said.
“Our ice creams are fairly famous for the taste and that’s to do with the type of machines and settings and the way we have it set up.
“The next thing is the price, so everybody can still afford it.
Normies has been at Flagstaff Hill for decades. Photo: Normies Soft Serve Ice Cream.
“We like to keep the prices as low as possible, we’re sort of the cheapest around.
“Some [vendors] are three dollars dearer, which when you have people come up and wanting to buy for a family it all adds up.”
But now the community will need to find a new way to enjoy Normies, with the business missing out on receiving the tender from council to operate at Flagstaff Hill.
“The open quotation process was conducted in accordance with council’s procurement policy and sought submissions for a three‑year licence,” a council spokesperson said.
“This was publicly advertised via Tenderlink to ensure transparency and equal opportunity for all interested operators, including existing vendors.”
“I was probably a bit surprised,” Norman said.
“But there’s a procedure they’ve got to go through and that procedure’s there for a reason.
“This time because of that procedure I missed out, it hurts in some ways that we didn’t get it but I’ve got no problems with council.”
But the community need not fret, because Norman is finding other ways to ensure they can access their ice cream fix.
“The plan of attack is we’ll start doing more streets, I’ll start looking at more events and things like that and also we do a lot of birthday parties,” he said.
“Supposing somebody’s got a birthday and they’ve only got 20 people, they can’t really afford to get an ice cream van over there and pay it, whereas what we do is we try and work it out so it’s within a run in that area.”
And he’s already got loyal customers calling him up to see if he can travel to their streets around the Illawarra.
“It is really, really nice,” Norman said.
“At 7 o’clock in the morning I start getting text messages asking ‘are you coming down our street today?’
“To me that’s great, it says that you’re doing something right with your prices and quality and to me that’s the important things.”
Updates on the van’s locations and contact details can be found on the Normies Soft Serve Ice Cream Facebook page.
