Rita's Italian Ice Opens North Richland Hills Drive-Thru As First Of Four DFW Franchise Shops

Rita's Italian Ice and Frozen Custard is moving deeper into North Texas with a drive-thru strategy, opening a North Richland Hills shop on July 1 as the first of four planned Dallas-Fort Worth locations.

The company said the North Richland Hills store, at 8900 N Tarrant Parkway, will be the first year-round drive-thru Rita's location in the DFW area. Additional stores are planned for Flower Mound, Carrollton and Farmers Branch later in 2026. The announcement positions the project as a significant market entry for a brand that has historically been best known along the East Coast.

The opening schedule is built around a two-day local launch. Rita's said celebrations begin June 30 with a "Scoop-er Cutting Ceremony" at 2 p.m. in partnership with the local chamber of commerce. Instead of a traditional ribbon cutting, local officials, chamber representatives and the franchisee team are expected to step behind the counter for a ceremonial first scoop. The store is then scheduled to open to the public at noon on July 1.

The company is using opening-day giveaways to drive early trial. The first 50 guests are set to receive Rita's gift bags, with some including golden tickets for free Italian Ice or Frozen Custard for a week. Those offers are small in cost relative to the importance of early local habit-building, especially for a frozen-dessert brand entering a market where customers may already have established treat routines.

Rita's chief executive Linda Chadwick said the brand has been part of communities across the East Coast for more than 40 years and sees North Texas as an opportunity to join family moments year-round. That year-round framing is important. In warmer Texas markets, drive-thru access can help a frozen-dessert operator avoid being treated as only an occasional seasonal stop.

For franchise development, the DFW plan shows how legacy food brands are adjusting real estate and service formats for new regions. Rita's says all four planned DFW stores will include drive-thru service. That format can make the concept more convenient for after-school trips, post-game stops and late-evening dessert runs, while also giving operators a clearer way to serve customers in high-traffic suburban corridors.

The announcement also gives some scale context for prospective franchisees. Rita's says it has grown to more than 600 shops and identifies itself as the largest Italian Ice concept in the world. The brand points to Entrepreneur's 2025 Franchise 500 and Restaurant Business's 2024 Top 500 list as recent national recognition.

The DFW push comes at a time when dessert and snack brands are competing for franchisee attention by offering compact menus, relatively focused operations and frequent limited-time product opportunities. Rita's menu is built around freshly made Italian Ice, frozen custard, Gelati combinations, seasonal flavours and rotating local promotions. That simplicity may help new-market training, but the company still needs strong site selection and local awareness to turn one opening into a multi-store market.

The North Richland Hills launch is therefore more than a single store opening. It is a test of whether Rita's can use drive-thru convenience and warm-weather demand to translate an East Coast community brand into a four-store North Texas beachhead. If the first store performs, Flower Mound, Carrollton and Farmers Branch could quickly become proof points for a broader DFW franchise strategy.

"Drive-thru access can help a frozen-dessert operator avoid being treated as only an occasional seasonal stop."