Palacana, a family-owned local company, churns out 48 ice cream flavors at a rate of 80 tubs a day, or 450 a week. And that’s not even counting the paletas — Mexican ice pops made from fruit or an ice cream base. Palacana makes 6,000 of them a day in 44 flavors. Palacana makes all sorts of ice cream flavors in gorgeous bright colors, different ones like pine nut, dolce de leche and horchata. The paletas come in so many flavors too, some sprinkled with spicy tajin. But to The Star’s Lisa Lopez, the best thing to order is the strawberry-banana smoothie. It’s made with fresh fruit and tastes just like a bowl of fresh strawberries with a few slivers of banana. Lisa says she hasn’t found a better smoothie anywhere in the KC area. Owner José Luis Valdez, whose first job was selling paletas on the streets of his native Mexico at age 7, opened his first ice cream store in 2004 along with his wife, Lucia Fonseca, and their two daughters. They had no business experience, but they had dedica...