Fusco’s Water Ice, a 67-year-old Delaware tradition, now serves pizza

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For 67 years, Fusco’s Italian water ice has been the taste of summer in Wilmington.

For almost that entire period, four generations of founder Francesco “Cheech” Fusco’s family have sold one thing and one thing only at the small red, white and green painted stall on Union Street: Italian water ice made with nothing but water, fruit and pure cane sugar.

But now everything is different. Because now Fusco’s has two restaurants. And they sell three things.

On Tuesday morning, April 23, Joseph Staffieri, the fourth-generation owner of Fusco, quietly turned on the lights of a former Starbucks on the edge of Stanton at 3926 Kirkwood Highway. And he opened his doors without telling anyone.

Customers found him anyway, he said: By the time his grand opening took place two days later, word had already spread. A week after the soft opening, most of the tables in the store were full by noon.

The menu? Water ice of course. Soft serve. And freshly baked tomato pie from Nick’s Pizza. (More about that pizza in a second.)

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From 1957 until last year, Fuscos usually served only one flavor.

Freshly squeezed lemon, sweetened with sugar and flavored with a few flakes of zest. Simple. Pure. There’s not much going on, and yet very little else. Most days it was only served in Wilmington’s Little Italy.

But since last year, Staffieri has been thinking about an empire. He wants to bring his family’s water ice tradition to the rest of Delaware and beyond.

Last summer, Fusco’s began selling its water ice from a trailer on Lewes Beach during the warm season. Staffieri collaborated with Lewes brewery Big Oyster Beer Company to create a lemon shandy beer. He brought a Fusco stand to the Wilmington Blue Rocks games.

Fusco’s experimented with adding flavors to the menu: maraschino cherry, imported from Italy. And mango, made from blender-fresh puree.

In August, Staffieri drove Fusco’s water ice trailer to the parking lot of a defunct Casual Male XL store on Kirkwood Highway, about 300 feet from where the new Fusco location now stands.

As he started working with the customers, they told him they wished they could find Fusco’s closer to where they live. They didn’t come into town much, but they missed the simple tastes they remember from their youth.

Staffieri listened. And then he signed on to open a new brick-and-mortar Fusco’s in a former Starbucks in the same parking lot, complete with unprecedented luxuries like air conditioning and indoor seating.

Staffieri added lactose-free soft serve to the menu at the Kirkwood location, whether it was vanilla or chocolate water ice cream. He decorated the walls with photos of family going back four generations.

And then, this Tuesday, he added something completely different: tomato pie, baked fresh every morning at Nick’s Pizza.

Nick’s Pizza and Fusco’s Italian Water Ice are a partnership that dates back to childhood

Nick’s Pizza, of course, is the wildly popular pizza and cheesesteak shop that opened last year in a small house in Price Corner. The store had started years ago as a pop-up, in the Little Italy restaurant where Nick’s owner, Nicholas Vouras, had grown up. Kozy Korner, a breakfast nook owned by the Vouras family for generations, had moved to 9th and Union in the early 1990s, just blocks from the original Fusco’s.

Vouras and Staffieri, who grew up in their family’s restaurants on the same street, knew each other long ago. So when Staffieri started bringing a trailer to festivals or parking lots to sling Fuscos, he invited Vouras to sell his tomato pie.

When it came time for Fusco’s new location, it made sense for both of them to add Nick’s cakes.

Nicks’ Pizza is still serving fresh-to-order round and Detroit-style pizzas at the Price Corner restaurant as always, along with fries and multiple versions of cheesesteak.

But what if you want that already famous tomato pie from Nick’s – served at room temperature, with a thick crust and fluffy like focaccia, covered in thick grandma-style tomato sauce steaming with garlic? Well, you have to go to one of the two locations of Fusco’s.

A whole pie costs $16. A single slice costs $3, available between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m

Vouras says the new system helps him plan ahead: He and Staffieri agree on the number of tomato pies in advance, and Vouras can then focus on baking his other pizzas during the day.

It also works quite well at Fusco. Staffieri has been selling tomato pie every day since he started, he says. Nearly every table at Fusco’s on Thursday included both water ice and at least one piece of Nick’s tomato pie. Some old customers came out of the woodwork to visit the new location.

“I haven’t seen you since the peach festival!” said a young man in a denim work shirt walking into the store.

Last August, Fusco’s and Nick’s Pizza teamed up at the 30th annual Middletown Olde-Tyme Peach Festival, where they teamed up to serve popsicles and tomato pie. The same combination apparently ensured that the customer returned to work almost a year later.

“I had to come,” he said. “You’re selling my two favorite things.”

One mango water ice. Two slices of tomato pie. Only $10 and out the door.

Fusco’s Italian Water Ice is located at 610 N Union Street, Wilmington; and 3926 Kirkwood Highway, Price Corner. Both locations are open daily from 11 a.m. when the weather is nice. Pizza by the slice until 2pm, or until sold out.

Matthew Korfhage is a Delaware business and development reporter covering all things land and money: openings and closings, construction and the many businesses that call the First State home. Send tips and insults to [email protected].