Rita's Water Ice opened its first Texas store last week, bringing the total to 556, and plans are to end this year with 600, double the 300 it ran four years ago, when the Tumolo family sold the Bensalem chain to Jim and Bill Rudolph's McKnight Capital Partners of Pittsburgh (they used to own Wendy's franchise). Rita's sales topped $98 million last year, up from $65 million in 2005, says spokeswoman Kate Shields.

My kids like Rita's, but they don't get why water ice should cost more than McDonald's hamburgers or Taco Bell burritos, or why prices at the Rita's takeout on the next street from ours go up each Spring. Rita's says the average "Large"-sized water ice is $2.71 this year, vs. $2.62 last year and $2.53 in 2007. "All pricing is set at the individual franchise partner’s discretion," and it's still cheaper than competing dessert chains like Dairy Queen, Baskin-Robbins, or Cold Stone Creamery, says Shields. 

To support the expansion, McKnight has turned the former "Rita's University" training center into "Cool University", a 5,000-foot Bensalem eat-in "store of the future" that sometimes features experimental products, with satellite Cool U campuses closer to new stores down South.