After 67 years, Fusco's Water Ice expands. And it's serving tasty tomato pie from Nick's

For 67 years, Fusco's Italian Water Ice has been the flavor of summer in Wilmington.

For nearly all of that span, four generations of founder Francesco "Cheech" Fusco's family have sold one thing and one thing only at the little red-white-and-green-painted stand on Union Street: Italian water ice made with nothing but water, fruit and pure cane sugar.

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

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

Customers found him anyway, he said: By the time his grand opening rolled around two days later, word had already traveled. A week after the soft opening, most tables in the shop were full by noon.

The menu? Water ice, of course. Soft serve ice cream. And fresh-baked tomato pie from Nick's Pizza. (More on that pizza in a second.)

2023: After 66 years, Fusco's Italian Water Ice expands statewide, including at Blue Rocks games

New Fusco's is part of an ambitious expansion for the heritage water ice stand

From 1957 until last year, Fusco's mostly served just a single flavor.

Fresh-squeezed lemon, sweetened with sugar and flavored with a few shavings of zest. Simple. Pure. Nothing much to it, and yet very little else like it. Most days it was served only in Wilmington's Little Italy.

But since last year, Staffieri's been thinking of 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 out of a trailer at the beach in Lewes during the warm season. Staffieri teamed up with Lewes brewery Big Oyster to make a lemon-shandy beer. He brought a Fusco's stand to Wilmington Blue Rocks games, where it's returned this season.

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

In August, Staffieri wheeled that 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's location now stands.

As he got talking to the customers, they told him they wished they could find Fusco's closer to where they lived. They didn't get into the city much — but they missed the simple flavor 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 unheard-of luxuries like air conditioning and indoor seating.

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

And then, on April 30, he added something else altogether: tomato pie, baked fresh each morning at Nick's Pizza.

Nick's Pizza and Fusco's Italian Water Ice is a partnership that goes back to childhood

Nick's Pizza is, of course, the virally popular pizza and cheesesteak shop that opened last year in a little house in Prices Corner. The shop had begun years ago as a pop-up, at the Little Italy restaurant where Nick's owner, Nicholas Vouras, had grown up. Kozy Korner, a breakfast nook owned for generations by the Vouras family, had moved to Ninth and Union by the early 1990s, just blocks from the original Fusco's.

Vouras and Staffieri, who grew up at their family's restaurants on the same street, had known each since way back. So when Staffieri began bringing a trailer to festivals or parking lots to sling Fusco's, he invited Vouras to sell his tomato pie.

When it came time for the new Fusco's location, adding those bakery pies from Nick's made sense to them both.

Nicks' Pizza still serves its fresh-to-order round pizzas and Detroit-style pizzas at its Prices Corner restaurant, same as always, alongside french fries and multiple versions of cheesesteak.

But if you want that already-famous tomato pie from Nick's — served room temperature, thick-crusted and airy as focaccia, covered in thick grandma-style tomato sauce that fumes with garlic? Well, you have to go to one of the two locations of Fusco's.

A whole pie is $16. A single slice is $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 then Vouras can focus on baking his other pizzas during the day.

It also works out pretty well for Fusco's. Staffieri's been selling out of tomato pie every day since he started, he said. Nearly every table at Fusco's on Thursday sported both water ice and at least one slice of Nick's tomato pie. Some old customers were coming 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 who wandered into the shop.

Last August, Fusco's and Nick's Pizza had teamed up at the 30th annual Middletown Olde-Tyme Peach Festival, serving water ice and tomato pie together. That same combination is apparently what brought the customer running back nearly 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. A mere $10, and back out the door.

Fusco's Italian Water Ice is located at 610 N. Union St., Wilmington; and 3926 Kirkwood Highway, Stanton. Both locations open daily at 11 a.m. when the weather's warm. Pizza by the slice until 2 p.m., or until they sell out.

Matthew Korfhage is business and development reporter in the Delaware region covering all things related to land and money: openings and closings, construction, and the many corporations that call the First State home. Send tips and insults to mkorfhage@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Fusco's Water Ice, a 67-year-old Delaware tradition, now serves pizza