The Goodie Truck is comfortable among the city's night owls, feeding the hipsters on gallery crawls and parking on Carson Street when the bars begin to empty and tummies feel that way, too.

"That's when people are hungry for pies," co-owner Jajean Morgan said. "Or they think they are."

That's fine, but I'm wondering when this sweet ride is going to become hip among the city's tots. Because this bright red truck could be the purveyor of one of the greatest cons we've ever played on our children: They'll eat fresh fruit all day once it's frozen and slathered with chocolate.

The chocolate-covered frozen banana is $2, and it's as sweet as any ice cream cone. And the ice cream sandwich, its outer layers homemade chocolate chip cookies, makes you wonder why your mother never thought of that.

This is not your father's ice cream truck. As Ms. Morgan and Millie Gregor will tell you, they have no regular route. They're random. They Twitter.

If you want to know where they'll be next, you'll have to go to twitter.com/TheGoodieTruck -- or e-mail them at goodietruck@gmail.com.

Ms. Morgan, 36, moved here from Chicago six years ago with her husband, and took a job at The Chocolate Moose in Squirrel Hill, where Ms. Gregor, 25, already was working. They hit it off right away.

Ms. Morgan had seen trucks like this one in Chicago and Philadelphia but didn't see anyone filling the niche here. So the pair went in together and paid about $5,000 for this old Dodge Ram truck with 150,000 miles on it on eBay last year. They painted it bright red and put together a suitable music tape -- "Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies and such -- and hit the road.

They started last October. When they made it through the winter in the black, they knew they were on to something. They like to do events, such as the Pride Awareness Walk last weekend, and are careful not to pull up in front of an ice cream store. But they couldn't get into the Three Rivers Arts Festival, and there have been times when they have had trouble setting up in a business district because store owners wonder what they're selling.

"It's hard to do a new thing," Ms. Gregor said. "It's a bad economy and people have their defenses up before they can even see what we are."

They've discovered recently that nonprofits may be more open to them. They had a good day recently outside the main branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and, as the Goodie Truck enters its first summer, it anticipates shifting more toward daylight hours.

The frozen key lime tart has been a good seller as the weather has warmed. And parents have figured out the fruit bars -- mango and pineapple and coconut, made with real fruit and fruit juice -- are a healthier bet than the artificially flavored dreck that comes out of most freezers. The late buzz that dark chocolate is "good for you" certainly hasn't hurt sales of the dipped strawberries at a buck apiece.

If the reaction of the Post-Gazette pressmen when these women pulled up in their truck outside the newspaper building is any indicator, the dads seem to like The Goodie Truck even when the kids aren't around. But like any small business, it's only as strong as its next sales.

On Ms. Morgan's MySpace page, here's what she wrote under "Who I'd Like To Meet":

"$4 a-pop dessert-eating people."