A former owner of the Rita’s Italian Ice franchise posted a series of warnings on TikTok about the chain after his franchise was removed.
Gina (@flicequeen) has reached more than 16,700 perspectives on her original video. Since then, he has posted 3 updated videos, explaining the story to viewers.
In her first video, Gina explains how she owned an Italian Rita ice cream shop in Lakeland, Florida, until the company “ended our relationship,” she says.
“I’m here to spill tea,” he adds, “so if you need to know what happened and why you bought a Rita’s Italian Ice franchise, be sure to move on. “
Gina says she’ll “come with receipts” for everything.
In his second video, titled “Part 1,” he says he chose to make a miniseries explaining his experience so he could “help other people decide whether or not to buy a franchise. “
Gina explains that when she came up with the idea to buy the franchise, she was actually giving birth with her daughter in the hospital. Once she was brought home, she called Rita and the first thing she was told was that she would have to paint with her suppliers, and “only with her suppliers”, the process.
Then, he says, the first step is to find a location. “They put me in touch with an authentic realtor,” he says, “they weren’t actually in Texas. “
After working with the agent from Texas for a while, she realized how many months had gone by, and she hadn’t seen much progress.
“Finally, I contacted Rita, someone in the real estate industry, and told her,” Gina says. She says Rita’s manager told her she had won anything after a few months.
To this, Gina tells the representative that she no longer needs to work with this agent. “I don’t think I’m doing anything,” he adds. It’s COVID. Back then, houses were bought and sold quickly.
So, Gina says she messaged the agent and told him she didn’t need to work with him anymore.
“Their reaction was, ‘You know, we sent you a link almost a week ago that you never opened and you didn’t know why. But if you use one of the sites we send you through this link, you’ll owe us some money,” says Gina.
Gina says she defied the officer’s habit and Rita made the decision not to do it with her. “They were like, ‘You know, we’re not talking to you that way; it’s just our supplier,'” he adds.
She admits she’s upset, but there’s nothing she can do about it.
Once she started building out her store, Gina says Rita’s head of construction also got into a disagreement with her. “After I found out about shelves,” she says, “shelving units, they were gonna be six to eight weeks delivery, and it was going to be after I opened the store.”
Gina explains that she couldn’t have opened the store without any shelves because the health department wouldn’t give her “the go” unless she had a place to store food products safely.
Because of this, Gina canceled the order and stopped messaging Rita’s employee.
Next, Gina says she was asked to pay extra money for delivery fees because none of the other vendors that Rita’s booked for her would be coming in on time either.
She says she’s grateful to the corporate structure on site for siding with her on many of those issues, saying it’s not her obligation to pay.
The next challenge, Gina found that the freezer she had wasn’t working. “How do you open an ice cream parlor without a working freezer?I don’t know, but it’s what was expected of me,” he says.
After exchanging emails with a company that intended to repair his freezer, he says the company asked him for cash before they even repaired the freezer. Gina also says that Rita’s company is also in the email chain.
“And Rita’s company didn’t say anything,” he adds.
Gina says this is the first challenge she’s had with Rita. “Every time I turned around, I had to use his coworkers,” she says. “His other people weren’t good; His other people were bad and unprofessional.
Gina then posts the moment of her story.
This video has an on-screen caption that reads, “Why I Fired as a Franchisee. “
About a week after Gina’s shop nonethelessly opened, despite all the setbacks, she had to deal with a visitor looking to pay for her ice cream with a $100 bill.
“My treat team member told her we could not accept that $100 bill,” she explains. The customer then asked for a manager.
Once Gina got to the customer, she said the customer was upset and didn’t believe that she was the manager. Gina also told her that they could not accept the $100 bill.
“She and her loved ones go through Facebook and tell everyone that I yelled at them and insulted them,” he says, “that I ripped the ice out of their autistic son’s hands. “
The visitor reportedly asked others to leave negative reviews and Gina claims that they did.
“It was nothing short of a nightmare,” she says. “Even though the story was the farthest thing from the truth, these people began to threaten my home, threaten me, threaten my treat team members, and I had to shut down my store.”
Of course, Gina says, since she had to close her store, Rita’s franchise had to be aware of the situation. Rita, delete my Facebook,” he says. At first, Gina thought it was a smart idea, but it turned out to make the situation worse.
“These people went on Google to start leaving me negative reviews,” she adds. Gina says the situation continued to get worse.
Gina then says she won a phone call from Linda Chadwick, Rita’s executive director.
“I showed her the video proof that I have of my side of the story, and somehow, it ended up with me and her in a screaming match,” she says. “I’m shocked because this is really far from professional, but I had some respect for her because she held her own.”
At the end of the conversation, Gina says that either party “held up their end of the bargain. “
However, Gina decided to sue the customers who wrongfully accused her. “That then caused a massive strain on my relationship with Rita’s,” she says before ending her second video.
In her third video, Gina says it’s “by far the wildest. “She said, “You have to stay because you wouldn’t possibly see me unless you see it for yourself. “
Gina explains that before her store closed, her sweet team pointed out to her that every time she ate one of their products, she started to feel sick.
“I try our product, I start feeling sick,” Gina says. Then she goes to ask Rita’s why this could be happening.
“They tell me I’m not cleaning my machine properly,” she says, “I knew that wasn’t true because I was cleaning the machine myself.”
Gina begins to ask other franchisees why people would be getting sick. “That’s when a franchisee told me that could happen if I’m not storing our custard properly, at proper temperatures.”
Again, Gina says this can’t be true since they have thermometers in their fridge. It is new and maintains the temperature very well.
“That’s when I learned that our births were between 3 and 5 in the morning and that I had never been there to check the temperature of a birth,” she adds.
“Make sure you take a screenshot,” Gina says before checking an email with a photo attached. The photo shows the custard that was sent to him at a temperature of four and nine degrees.
Gina says Rita’s was made aware of this issue and still allowed it to happen for “over a month.” She adds that not all deliveries showed up as 49 degrees, but they were almost always above 42.
In an email, Gina took a screenshot of Rita stating that “42 degrees is safe” for the custard temperature.
Rita also claims that they weren’t left at the right temperature because the “driver” didn’t have the right thermometer.
“It was at the end of August and they were made aware of some of those issues in early August, as you can see from my first email,” Gina says.
That’s when Gina says she told the company that 42 degrees wasn’t. “You know it’s not because it’s in your product manuals,” he adds. Product manuals state that custard deserves to be less than 42 degrees.
After all this, along with accusations from customers, Gina decided to close her store.
Before ending her video, Gina says she asked Rita for a loss of source of income for herself and her members.
She says they were not paid and were told they should have opened the store “with the expired product, with the out-of-temperature custard” and should have “just made it work.”
Viewers were shocked by Rita Italian Ice’s actions. ” The jaw drops to the ground,” said one. What’s wrong with them!?”
“I’m so sorry to hear that, Gina. You’re here for yourself, #lakeland,” said another.
The Daily Dot reached out to Gina’s TikTok direct message and Rita’s Italian Ice email.