Featuring different desserts including their famous Italian water ice, frozen custard, and a variety of other sweet treats, Rita’s Italian Ice, nicknamed Rita’s, offers something for everyone.
The stores feature different desserts as well, including gelati, Blendini, Concrete, Misto Shake, frozen drinks, milkshakes and more.
Rita’s originated on a porch in Philadelphia after firefighter Bob Tumolo purchased a recipe from an elderly couple in his neighborhood.
Now, Rita’s boasts over a grand 580 stores in the United States and internationally and is now the largest Italian ice franchise across the globe.
Their flavors of Italian ice range from fruits like Mango and Lemon to Pumpkin Pie and Swedish Fish. When it comes to the taste of their water ice (Italian ice), I would say that I certainly have mixed feelings. The wide range of flavors makes it expected for an individual to not like all of them.
The cherry water ice tastes almost exactly like the cherry cough drops you may take when you have a sore throat.
Personally, I am not a fan of this sort of artificial cherry flavor. Cherry Jolly Ranchers have a better cherry flavor that doesn’t taste like cough drops. Cherry is also less appetizing because it has cherry skin mixed in, which provides an unpleasant texture when eaten.
However, when mixed with either vanilla or chocolate custard, the taste becomes much more appealing. With vanilla, it tastes like a cherry cream soda, which is an enjoyable flavor. The chocolate custard makes the cherry water ice taste like a delicious chocolate covered strawberry.
As for the blue raspberry water ice, it needs no custard to sweeten the deal. Its flavor is a tangy and almost sour artificial blue raspberry flavoring.
It has a taste similar to that of a blue raspberry lollipop, which I happen to love.
It does have a similarity to the cherry flavoring in one way. The vanilla custard paired with the blue raspberry water ice tastes like a blue raspberry cream soda.
Despite this, with chocolate custard, the flavor is worse. The chocolate flavor and blue raspberry compete as to which one you end up tasting. The two tastes don’t mix harmoniously like the cherry ones do.
Like with the blue raspberry water ice, the mango flavor also tastes quite like its same-flavored lollipop.
The mango flavor is tangy as well, and is an appetizing flavor. It’s a staple flavor of Rita’s water ice that needs no introduction. When paired with vanilla custard, Mango tastes more smooth, creamy and rich. When it comes to chocolate custard, the chocolate flavoring easily overpowers the taste of the mango.
The root beer water ice also finds itself overpowered when partnered with chocolate custard. However, the aftertaste is much more akin to the taste of root beer. As one would expect, the root beer water ice tastes just like a root beer float with the vanilla custard. By itself, the water ice tastes more like flat root beer (lacks carbonation). In general, I don’t like root beer that much, so this flavor is not my cup-of-tea.
Overall, my favorite flavors in order from best to worst are Blue Raspberry, Mango, cherry, and Root Beer.