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YORKTOWN, N.Y. – Rita's Italian Ice is expected to open in Yorktown's Underhill Plaza before the summer, said Linda Duke, CEO of Duke Marketing.
The Italian ice and custard shop will take over a vacant storefront between the travel service store and Pandora. The franchisees are Jeffrey Besselman and David Goldes – who are co-owners of an existing Rita’s store in Elmsford. They plan to celebrate their Yorktown grand opening in May. They will hire eight to 10 "Treat Team" members locally, Duke said. The Rita's Italian Ice menu is available online.
In other business news, Sophia's Pizza, 368 Downing Drive, expanded into a neighboring storefront with a soft opening Friday. The space was left vacant after the longtime Cards & Gifts store closed in 2012.
"It was a lovely setting and they turned the place into a lovely martini bar," said Yorktown Town Board member Terrence Murphy, who attended the opening.
The addition is called Sophia's Restaurant Wine & Martini Bar. Hours posted on the store window indicate it will stay open until 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, until 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and until 9 p.m. Sunday.
A few feet away in an adjacent storefront, a permit has been posted that indicates work has been approved to to transform the store into a nail salon. The space was previously occupied by KFC.
Along with the openings and expansions, Yorktown also lost a store last month. Paging Concepts, the Verizon Wireless store in the Triangle Center, has closed.
Comments (5)
Rita's is delicious...we would have it at the Jersey Shore but at least they won't charge you by the ounce!
It's nice to see business thriving in our town but we need some more diversity. Italian restaurants and ice cream stores seem to be popping up all over the place. I would love to see other types of business.
BTW, how about a Trader Joe's where the Food Emporium was?
In order for Trader Joe's to open in the old Food Emporium location, two things have to happen:
1) A&P has to be willing to lease the location to a competitor
2) Trader Joe's has to have interest in opening in Yorktown, and in a shopping center not on a main road.
Neither of these things are likely to happen in the foreseeable future (maybe ever). It's great to dream about TJ's opening there, and I would love to see it happen and will be the first to admit that I was wrong if it does, but based on my conversations with managers at other TJ stores in the area, I don't see it happening and it's really a waste to keep suggesting it and getting people's hopes up.
I do agree that Rita's is great and will look forward to visiting them on their free ices day (if they are open by then). I also question the need for yet another frozen dessert place in town. But at least they have name recognition and they're something different.
Another ice cream/desert place? I think that there are too many in town as it is. There isn't room for one to thrive and do well. Town is not too big, yet there is too much competition for these places. I'm afraid that one by one, they will slowly close down and the stores will be vacant again. Let's put some variety in these stores. Anyone know what's going in Food Emporium? A small movie theatre like in Mount Kisco would be nice. We need more things for the children and teens of Yorktown.
Happy to see new places opening but do we really need another ice cream place? I realize it has Ital. ice as well but that is a lot of store fronts basically serving the same stuff. We need some original stores, not repeats.
Happy to see new stores opening in town. Sophia's ia a great place to go enjoy good food. I hope all the other current openings do well. Hopefully we will see something in the old Blooms and Food Emporium soon.