Childhood Dream Powers Opening of Mount Granita Storefront in Little Italy

Opening a storefront on Murray Hill Road in Little Italy was always in the back of Christopher Giancola’s mind. As a 12-year-old boy, he helped his great-grandparents paint the inside of their apartment building between tenants. He climbed up the ladder and began painting the walls. He lifted one of the tiles and saw a beautiful tin ceiling above.

“That’s when I knew, I’m going to do something with this one day, and here we are,” says Giancola, owner of Mount Granita.

Mount Granita opened its storefront on May 19, 2023, after three years of running the business from a street cart in front of the building. They serve authentic Sicilian granita inspired by Giancola’s family heritage. His great-grandparents immigrated from Sicily in 1955, and he remembers watching his great-grandmother Emilia Pinzone make granita.

“She used to make a granita very simply,” Giancola says. “It was the espresso flavor granita, which is just basically leftover espresso from the stovetop, mixed with some sugar and then put it in the freezer and mix it up after a little while. It was a good way of making something out of basically nothing.

Christopher experimented with many recipes and is dedicated to only using fresh fruit and no syrups. He took his inspiration from the traditional flavors and processes of granita made in Sicily.

All of Mount Granita’s flavors are made with natural ingredients. Step 1 in their process is to find good-quality, reliable, fresh fruit. Step 2 is to mix the perfect ratio of fruit to cane sugar to water. Then the mixture is put in a machine for a spin while it’s freezing, and the end product is a smooth, refreshing, cold and fruity treat.

Because no stabilizers or preservatives are used in the product, they hand blend every flavor each day to get it back to the fluffy smooth consistency before opening.

“Granita is something that reminds me of what my grandma would make, and it’s something that’s traditional to me and holds a very sentimental place in my heart,” he says.

The building has been in his family for more than 60 years when his great-grandfather bought the building after it was converted into an apartment. From 1914 to the early '60s, the building housed several merchants and businesses.

“Many of the side streets in Little Italy used to have dozens of different niche stores,” Giancola says. “Our building was first a small grocery store. At one point, it was a barber shop, a diner, an ice cream shop, a shoe cobbler and an art studio.”

Before they renovated the building, two drop ceilings covered the original tin ceiling, plaster and drywall was crumbling off the original brick walls and several layers of flooring covered up the original maple floors.

With the help of family and friends, Giancola worked hard to restore and uncover the building to show off the craftsmanship, the building materials and the building quality that existed in the early 1900s.

When remodeling the building, Giancola wanted to keep the building’s traditional look. He wanted it to look like it belonged in the neighborhood, so he chose to install a striped awning reminiscent of storefronts he saw in old photographs of Little Italy.

It was important to Giancola that his storefront had a serving window to emulate the original street cart and to encourage a sidewalk presence, which, he believes, is the best way to meet people and to have a healthy neighborhood.

“Sometimes as you’re walking along the street, you don’t really want to go into a place, you just want to experience a place,” Giancola says. “The sidewalk part of it was important to us. It’s something for everybody, that includes our bubble machine. Even if you’re not coming to our shop, it’s just something that fills the air and brings up the spirit a little bit.”