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<\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\nAt Rita\u2019s, \u201cIce Custard Happiness\u201d is their way of life. They’re passionate about delivering super-friendly guest service and providing our guests with a cool, smooth, delightfully happy treat experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Owner Gina Tullio is a Jersey native but USF Alumni. She told me she moved back to Florida two years ago when her husband got a job offer they couldn\u2019t refuse. A year later, after getting comfortable in Lakeland they had their first daughter and Tullio says the motivation to start an Italian ice shop up, started with cravings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI Jersey we have a lot of places you can get that Italian ice and when I moved here there was one, in our area but it closed,\u201d said Tullio. \u201cI had my husband drive all the way to Clearwater from Lakeland to get it after that so, eventually \u2013 I decided to open my own.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tullio said she signed the lease for her franchise, while she was in labor, in the hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYup, I was in labor \u2013 signing the documents,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, she\u2019s a proud business owner who\u2019s employed dozens of people, including teenagers who needed first time job experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was nervous that I wasn\u2019t going to be able to find employees because of what I had heard but I had no issue,\u201d said Tullio. \u201cI had 40 more applications then I could look at.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rita\u2019s Italian Ice and Custards had their soft opening Sunday where Tullio served friends and family who supported her along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tullio said Polk County is the best place for her new business but she admits that getting started was met with some new challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFreight alone for my boxes, freezers and refrigerators was $6,000,\u201d said owner, Gina Tullio. \u201cThen for other stuff, he told me the products I was purchasing have a 30 -40% mark up on them. He couldn\u2019t find it cheaper if he wanted to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Polk County was rated as one of the fasted growing counties in America, this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe hardest part was finding a place,\u201d said Tullio. \u201cRent has gone up insane in Lakeland People are moving here, they can\u2019t afford Tampa.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tampa’s inflation rate went up 8% and new business owners, like Tullio say that can be felt in Polk County. Tullio said it cost them nearly $50,000 more than expected to get the franchise off the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was a lot more than expected but we\u2019re really happy to be here,\u201d said Tullio. \u201cCome and see us! Our custard is unlike any other in the county.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rita\u2019s is located at: 3115 US 98 N in Lakeland\u2019s Market Square shopping Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Congratulations to Rita’s Italian Ice for opening their new location in the Market Square Shopping Center at 3115 US 98 N., Lakeland, FL 33805. At Rita\u2019s, \u201cIce Custard Happiness\u201d is… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[1959],"class_list":["post-18184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-congratulations-to-ritas-italian-ice"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}