NEW YORK, NY October 20, 2008 —A dessert category was added to the Vendy Awards held in at the Tobacco Factory in DUMBO this year. It was the fourth annual awards benefit judging the city’s best street food. The event raised $30 thousand for the advocacy group, the Street Vendor Project.

REPORTER: Finalist Ben Van Leeuwen parks a yellow truck on the Upper West Side and serves gourmet ice cream made from all natural, New York State products.

VAN LEEUWEN: It's Nostalgic, it's Americana. Selling ice cream in New York City out of a shop makes it very hard to turn a profit. And you also, with ice cream, need the best location, so the truck was perfect.

REPORTER: Celebrity judges like competitive food eater Tim Janus, food writer Daisy Martinez and journalist Calvin Trillin gave the 2008 desert award to Kim Ima’s Treats Truck and the Vendy Award to the Vendly Brothers’s for their Mexican food cart, “CALEXICO CARNE ASADA”.

Listen to an interview with the Vendly Brothers from The Brian Lehrer Show