Rita’s Italian Ice

Favorite place. Love Italian Ice. I always get classic Lemon. So delicious. You can’t beat the price! $ 3 for a regular size Italian ice! If you download their app, it’s a digital punchcard. After 8 purchases, you get a free one! Just what I needed. more excuses to go to Rita’s.

Rita’s always hits the spot in a hot summer day. This is a good location and selection isn’t bad my only complaint is Rita’s is replacing all custard with ice cream due to egg storage. No date for return of egg based products.

Rita’s is an awesome cold treat when you’re not feeling ice cream or froyo. Instead, you’ll get hooked up with Gelati.
What is that? It’s custard and Italian ice awesomeness, that’s what. Now treat yourself!

How I heard of this place: Our friend from Seattle, visiting DC.
Type of cuisine: Italian ice and frozen custard. Layered, blended, or on its own. «At Rita’s, our tag line of „Ice Custard Happiness“ is more than a saying. It’s our way of life — and a steadfast promise to our valued guests. We promise happiness, and it’s a promise that we keep. Our franchise partners and Treat Team members stand behind it every day when they come to work and serve our guests. Because at Rita’s, each person who visits one of our locations is our guest, not just a customer. Our guests come to Rita’s to feel carefree, to escape the pressures of daily life, to take a moment for themselves, and to get a dose of happiness! Therefore, our franchise partners and Treat Teams stop at nothing to ensure that each guest enjoys the freshest, highest quality treats — served quickly and with a smile.»
Ambiance: Fun and festive, the red and white striped awning over the sidewalk and the dozen patrons standing outside with waxy cups in hand, welcomed us to the famous Rita’s on H Street. In between the stripes, a single row, in white reads «Ice*Custard*Happiness», and we soon came to find out why. Red, white and blue tiled floors hosted red carpets with Rita’s logo from the door, and across the front of the ice display case. Walls in blue — Mediterranean at the bottom, sky at the top, separated by smaller tiles in red, white, blue and green — sparsely housed posters in red frames, describing Rita’s specialties: Italian Ice, Old-​Fashioned Frozen Custard, Gelati, Misto, Blendini, Light Line. Red and blue specks formed a confetti pattern on the white counter, where our ordering line came to an end. Menu items sat above the frozen custard machines, offering three flavors in each of the two machines. Limited seating at a white barquette with three red, backed, plastic stools faces out onto H Street through the vast windows framed in green paint. Two small, round tables behind the ordering line also accompanied a pair of red chairs, where patrons could sit and savor this moment in their happy places.
What I ordered: I sampled the Peanut Butter & Jelly, Florida Orange and Passion Fruit, and ended up with a regular size of Passion Fruit, Florida Orange and Mango (regular size: $). In our party of five, we also had one order for chocolate custard, one for Gelati with chocolate custard layered with Sugar-​Free Sour Cherry, a Gelati with vanilla custard layered with Florida Orange and Passion Fruit, and my Chris, without any sampling, immediately ordered a large ice: Strawberry and Cotton Candy.
What I loved: I really enjoyed the Passion Fruit ice, most. The orange was vibrant, full of sweet orange flavor and icy cold. Chris’s selections, too, were both delicious! Cotton Candy tasting exactly like the fluffy, fair treat, but frozen, and the strawberry sweetly delicious. The custard (vanilla), creamy, heavy and flavored with a hint of vanilla.
Why I loved it: It’s the perfect hot weather snack, to cool you off, quench your thirst and enjoy with friends. I also love the history, according to Rita’s website: «It’s well documented that the heritage of modern day Water Ice dates back to Ancient Rome and Greece. It is said that the Romans would often infuse handfuls of Mount Etna’s snow with wines and syrups as a special delicacy. In fact, Sicily is often cited as the birthplace of modern water ice as far as the Western world is concerned. The flavors most common to the western part of Sicily are still among those that are popular today: lemon and coffee.»
Cost: Low to average ($ 3 per ice)

Cool place! It definitely could have been cleaner, and the staff could have been more friendly (err, or there could have been more of them). Tried the frozen custard — not something I’ve ever tried before. Not a huge fan, but that’s not Rita’s fault!

It’s a normal Ritas. what else other than solid Italian Ice is wanted? I came here on a weekend afternoon, sun blazing, no line and good service. The place could use a more tidying up, some cleaner floors, etc. But if you’re on H st, and it’s not the dead of winter, I’d suggest grabbing a cup of ice and walking the streets checking out the restaurants/​bars/​stores that it has to offer rather than being cooped up in a sterile looking Ritas.

NOTE: Rita’s as a chain gets more stars, but I’m just giving this location 3 stars for their so-​so service (see below).
I’ve been eating Rita’s since I was a kid. My boyfriend only learned of Rita’s after he met me, but man has he really become obsessed! We are both VERY happy this Rita’s is so close to us, so that we can go pretty often.
Rita’s italian ice flavors are the best — I’m personally a fan of the cream ice, like mint chocolate chip (my favorite), birthday cake, or red velvet cake. The cream ice is just thicker italian ice. The fruit-​flavored ice is also very good and incredibly refreshing. I don’t normally get the fruit italian ice by itself, but the combination of a fruity italian ice with vanilla custard (a gelati) is very good.
There are great options at Rita’s so that you can be really healthy if you want (and just get really, really good italian ice) or you can be moderately healthy and mix it with a little custard (a gelati), or you can just not be healthy at all and go for an amazing combination of lots of custard, ice, and possibly some toppings — that last one is normally what I do :) You can also just get custard, and now they offer sundaes with unlimited toppings. I normally get a blendini, which is kind of like a McFlurry, but made with italian ice and custard instead of ice cream. The misto is also really good — it’s like a shake with a blend of italian ice and custard. I highly recommend mint chocolate chip cream ice and chocolate custard — it doesn’t look pretty, but it tastes SO good.
The service at this location is so-​so — I’ve never had any serious issues, but they’re not always the friendliest. Either way, the ice is worth a couple minutes of less-​than-​friendly service. Rita’s also has an app so that you can get a free ice after 9 visits, and they send out coupons regularly if you belong to their email list.

Never been to Rita’s before. I will definitely go back! The banana icey was DE-​YUMMY. Rated at 3 stars simply because they had no napkins and were unapologetic for that. What? Really? No napkins! And you’re serving drippy, droopy custard and icey’s! Not acceptable.
By the by, did I mention that the banana icey was DE-​YUMMY!?!

a rita’s is a rita’s. the taste doesnt change much from place to place but i guess the service is what matters. Service was ok here. Their belly ipad reader was stolen which is a super stinker since i couldnt get my points. but oh well — probably will never come around to this area again anyway.

Yummy Italian ices. But I wish it had chocolate-​flavored Italian ice.

My love for Rita’s comes from an unfortunate, cloudy summer spent in Pittsburgh. We’d schedule activities around almost daily trips to Rita’s. It was slightly pathetic. But enough about me…
This is a typical location. Uncomfortable, plastic, casual modern minimalist décor (i.e. «Ikea-​esque» plastic chairs). I always get vanilla custard with caramel sauce. There is no ice or misto flavor that I would enjoy more than that. The piña colada, honeydew melon, and most tropical flavors are good. I try to stay away from the heavily-​artificially colored flavors like grape, swedish fish, and the blue one. Some batches of pina coloada, melon, etc have little chunks of fruit in them, which I like.
The girl who was working was nice and answered our questions rather candidly. I am not sure how the pricing works, but it seems like the stands (like on Little River Turnpike) are less expensive than the eat-​in locations (like this one and Chinatown), but there’s the DC vs VA thing, so it could be a combination of factors.

Love Rita’s. Great place to walk to for dessert. I just wish it was open later on Friday and Saturday.

$ 8 for two children’s cones? I thought I was at Yankee Stadium. No game though. That’s not gelati here. The ice cream was good.

«Welcome to Rita’s, I’m tired.» A point for honesty. But that also made me feel pressed to decide what to order (yes, gelati, but what flavor? ok fine, black cherry), in the event that she might pass out while making it. My order was made efficiently and the custard and water ice was at the perfect ratio of creaminess and brain freeze. And that suff-​ices.

It’s true, they are understaffed here. There was only one young girl working on a busy Sunday afternoon and the lines were long. We were on a mission for some frozen custard. The flavors were limited to just vanilla and chocolate to my dismay, but that’s fine. I wanted to get a quart, however they didn’t have pricing for a quart of frozen custard, they just had small and large. I asked for the price of a quart and she had to look it up. It was almost $ 13 so I just decided to get two larges which came out to about $ 8 and change.
I have to say, I love the texture of frozen custard as opposed to soft serve or frozen yogurt, but this frozen custard was just «meh». It wasn’t particularly interesting and tasted pretty close to soft serve. That silkiness was missing. Tasted really generic. The chocolate flavor was definitely better than vanilla, but still, uninteresting. Overall, they are just okay and really need to properly staff their store. I have not tried their Italian ices, but I am not inclined to do so. Might be back if I get in the mood for frozen custard, but I’m on the look out for something better.

Rita’s is pretty consistent no matter which Rita’s you go to… at least the ones I’ve been to and I’ve been to about 8 different locations. This location is no exception. I stopped into this Rita’s during the H St Festival in September of 2011. The staff was fairly friendly (friendly enough that is) and quick so I really can’t complain. I almost always get the Gelati. The Italian Ice & Frozen Custard combination may not seem normal if you’ve never had one but it’s DELICIOUS.

The first time I tried frozen custard was in a shopping mall in Los Angeles… and it was AMAZING. I was sooo excited when I saw Rita’s while walking down H Street today. The only real bummer was that the only flavor they had was vanilla. The girls working mentioned that they usually have chocolate and strawberry as well… but no reason why they didn’t have it today or when we could expect the other flavors to return. Either way, the vanilla was delicious and well worth the $ 4 price tag.

Convenient location across from the Atlas Room. Window seating is three wide, and the rest of the counter is rendered nigh useless for all but the ultra-​anorexic by the cramped room layout. Service is friendly enough and super efficient. I enjoyed my wild black cherry Misto noticeably more than Brian’s equivalent Italian ice; the inclusion of the custard added a silky creaminess that was well-​appreciated. Plus I’m lazy… so if I can suck it through a straw instead of spooning it out of a cup, I’m all for it.

The italian ice alone is nothing without the «custard,» super thick and creamy frozen yogurt. My little paper cup barely held up the heavy mess packed and piled on high.
The strawberry and green apple are the least artificial-​like flavors, although the blue raspberry’s deep blue, Avatar-​esque tint on my lips made me crave it all the more.
Thank you to the young ladies serving the bar – they were so attentive and cheerful despite my «this is my first time here; would you hold on a minute; give me my 5 samples» attitude.

Yes, another 1^st review! I’ve been waiting for you.
Free small Italian ice all week. How can you not like that!!! Most amusing part: Philadelphia Water Ice truck was parked right outside. Gotta like a little rivalry.
Staff was super friendly, despite the packed line of 7 year olds. As for the actual product, had the key lime ice (sweet and slightly tart) and the green apple (tastes just like the Jolly Rancher, which is a minus in my book). Will try the pineapple later this week.