South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Richie’s Gourmet Italian Ices closing
For more than a quarter century, Richie Childs has been selling gourmet Italian ices through the window of a tiny store on Commercial Boulevard in Oakland Park. Not for much longer. Richie’s Gourmet Italian Ices will be closing on Dec. 16 to make way for a Starbucks.
Never mind that there are
30,000 coffee shops around the world and only one Richie’s. Pave paradise and put up a coffee shop.
“On Aug. 13, I got a notice from Safeway to vacate within
15 days because they were selling to Publix,” Richie says. “I panicked. I called Publix in Lakeland and asked them to give me more time. Publix agreed and was nice enough to let me stay until Dec. 31. They were very fair to me.”
A Publix spokeswoman was looking into the matter, but had no immediate comment.
The affable Richie has been selling his homemade gourmet ices, coffees and soft pretzels out of the 150-square-foot store at 898 E. Commercial Blvd., for 26 years. The shop sits catty-corner to the new Publix, which opened on Nov.
1 at 950 E. Commercial Blvd. It’s quite possible Richie’s is the smallest store in South Florida. Certainly, his is one of the few independent business selling the specialty ices, which are a cross between a sorbet and a snow cone. Yelpers rave about them.
Richie says his little location also is convenient because of the drive-through. Customers, many of them busy moms who pick up their kids from nearby schools, can pull off the boulevard to grab a frosty treat and quickly be on their way without getting out of the car.
“I opened up on Black Friday in 1992, and I’ve been scooping ices ever since,” he says.
Even though he’s served thousands of customers, Richie doesn’t know them by name. “I know them by flavor and by their cars. You’re lemon, right?” he asks with grin in his distinctive South Philly accent.
Like so many others in our neighborhood, my husband, Dan, and I have been bringing our (now-grown) kids to Richie’s since we moved in more than 25 years ago.
Richie’s pint-size store is popular. He makes 25 buckets fresh every day using natural ingredients and hunks of real fruit. Flavors change daily and include traditional lemon, chocolate, strawberry and cherry, along with exotic combinations such as lemon-ginger, pineapple-basil, mango, coconut, tangerine and watermelon. There are kid favorites rainbow, birthday cake and
vanilla chip, too.
“But my No. 1 best seller is cotton candy,” says the Coconut Creek resident, who employs three fulltime workers. Ice tubs are stored in freezers on the second floor of the shop.
Richie says he was a holdover tenant from Albertsons before it was taken over by Safeway, and that his lease expired in 2006. “You can’t find another building like this — it doesn’t exist.” He never got a chance to buy the store, he says, shaking his head.
“They lost my file. I was month-to-month for many, many years. Over the years, I’ve done all the maintenance of the building and acted like an owner, even though I wasn’t.”
He says there are enough Starbucks around.
“I don’t know what they are going to do, build a new building or what, knock it down. People in the neighborhood
are going to be very disappointed if I’m out of business.”
“No!” exclaims Desiree Duinones, 25, when she hears the sad news. She lives down the street and stops in a few times a week to get a blueberry ice for her son Dominick. “I can’t believe it. Richie is so personable. This is like a little family here. I’ve been coming here since I was little. Starbucks are everywhere.”
The new grocery store, which is across the street from an older, busy, Publix in the Northridge Shopping Center, has a pharmacy and a liquor store and — surprise! — a Starbucks inside. The store has the same layout as the previous Safeway store.
There are no plans to close the older Publix, a spokeswoman said.
Publix acquired the Safeway store, along with two others in Alamonte Springs and Largo, in June. In 2016, Albertsons converted its only three Florida stores into Safeways after
merging with the company in 2015. Safeway spent nearly $10 million to renovate them, adding Starbucks coffee shops and expanding specialty- and organic-food selections before the acquisition.
“This is a land-lease deal. It’s a legal mess for me. I just need to move on,” Richie says. “This is a David and Goliath story. I can’t win.”
Meanwhile, Richie is searching for a new location in the neighborhood, and says customers can keep up with him on social media at Facebook.com/ richicesices.
He hopes to find a new spot in the area or have one built and be open by spring. He may even go mobile with a truck, he said.
“I’ve had generations of people coming here. I’ll be back. Richie’s is not dead yet.”
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