Fizz Fusion: An innovative soda shop in Windsor
Published 1:00 pm Thursday, December 12, 2024
Francesca Ciula poses for a photo in front of Fizz Fusion, the business she owns and operates out of Windsor that brings the West Coast phenomenon of dirty sodas to the Tidewater area. (Photo by Titus Mohler)
Fizz Fusion has expanded since it opened in August to include a turfed, outdoor seating area that is seasonally decorated. (Photo by Titus Mohler)
Fizz Fusion features a diverse array of signature dirty sodas and other beverages, and customers can also design their own dirty soda. (Photo by Titus Mohler)
Fizz Fusion, located at 45 W. Windsor Blvd. in Windsor, added a drive-through option in mid-November. (Photo by Titus Mohler)
Fizz Fusion is located at 45 W. Windsor Blvd. in Windsor next to Redd’s Climate Controlled Self-Storage. (Photo by Titus Mohler)
Fizz Fusion is located at 45 W. Windsor Blvd. in Windsor next to Redd’s Climate Controlled Self-Storage. (Photo by Titus Mohler)
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Francesca Ciula is bringing a West Coast phenomenon to the town of Windsor in the form of her innovative soda shop named Fizz Fusion.
The shop, located at 45 W. Windsor Blvd., opened on Aug. 23 and has expanded since then to include an ornate outdoor seating area and a drive-through.
Fizz Fusion serves a variety of non-alcoholic beverages, including coffee, teas, lemonades, hot chocolate and another drink category that may be less familiar to people on the East Coast.
“Our main thing is the dirty sodas,” Ciula said.
As defined on Fizz Fusion’s menu board, “Dirty sodas are soft drinks spiked with flavored syrups, fruit juices and creamers. Originating in Utah, dirty sodas have gained immense popularity throughout the West Coast. Fizz Fusion is excited to bring this experience to Virginia.”
The menu board added, “Dirty soda fans love to create customizable and rich flavor profiles, turning an ordinary soft drink into an entirely new experience.”
The menu has a significant variety of dirty soda combinations to choose from, and customers have the option to build their own combinations as well.
Each combo has a base beverage, and the options currently available at Fizz Fusion are Coke, Diet Coke, Dr. Pepper, Diet Dr. Pepper, Sprite, Mountain Dew, Diet Mountain Dew, Fanta Orange, Mug’s Root Beer and Fizz Energy.
The syrups that can be added include fruity options, such as strawberry, blackberry, raspberry, cherry, peach, blue raspberry, green apple, watermelon, mango, and pineapple; other options, including French vanilla, caramel, cinnamon bun, toasted marshmallow, and coconut; and sugar-free options for French vanilla, strawberry, peach, pineapple, salted caramel, coconut, and brown sugar cinnamon.
Add-ins available to top off the dirty sodas include vanilla cream, coconut cream, cream, gummy shark, gummy frog, whipped cream and Fizz Energy Splash.
Part of the menu is seasonal and continues to change as the year progresses.
“There’s really something for everyone,” Ciula said.
Ciula, who is 28, grew up in Ohio and earned a degree in marketing and business management from Miami University of Ohio that included a rigorous curriculum of business classes covering finance, entrepreneurship and more, along with projects like working with companies to devise new marketing initiatives.
She traveled a lot and first became acquainted with the concept of a dirty soda shop during a visit to California.
“Then when I visited Arizona, I saw that they had soda shops like this all over,” she said.
She moved to Houston, Texas, and discovered they were popular there as well.
While on vacation in Cancún, Mexico, with her family, Ciula happened to meet Jake Redd, the Windsor Town councilman and businessman, who was also vacationing there with his family.
A relationship bloomed between Ciula and Redd that was long-distance for a brief time, but then Ciula opted to move to Windsor so they could start their life together.
Upon moving to the area, she began working for Navy Federal Credit Union at the corporate level in its risk management division. It was a hybrid position that allowed her to work remotely and also involved her traveling to the NFCU’s corporate headquarters in Washington, D.C., monthly.
“I’ve always known that I wanted to own my own business,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to own a coffee shop, but then this soda idea, I kept thinking about it, and one day I woke up, and I was like, ‘Jake, I really want to do this,’ and he was like, ‘You should do it, go for it.’ And so I quit my corporate job and did this.”
She said she started planning Fizz Fusion in 2023.
“It was a couple months of planning and figuring out the menu and what I wanted to do and finding the trailer and then picking out the color scheme and painting it,” she said.
“On the first day when we opened up, we just had the trailer out here,” she said. “We didn’t have turf, we didn’t have anything. I didn’t advertise on social media because I just wanted to see if people would stop by. And we had orders at 7 in the morning as we opened up.
“And then we saw that it was a hit, and we started adding turf, and then slowly it’s become what it is now,” she added.
Fizz Fusion is now readily identifiable from West Windsor Boulevard/U.S. Route 460 by its large inflatable cup that reads “Fizz Fusion Dirty Sodas.” The astroturfed area includes seating, with decorations and music that have changed with the season and currently evoke Christmastime.
In a Nov. 21 interview, Ciula noted that a drive-through option was added the week prior. To make this addition possible, she had to ensure that a variety of standards were met to satisfy health codes connected with having a drive-through offering.
“The water tank, we had to make sure that it drains properly,” she said. “We have to make sure that we have a certain water reservoir. We also have to have a commissary … We abide by the health code. We have random inspections. We’ve had our first inspection already, which we passed.”
Prior to the drive-through, Fizz Fusion’s patrons were mainly of the walk-up variety.
“People were sitting, and I saw people have coffee dates with their friends, and so it’s just really cool to see how people are really receptive to this idea,” Ciula said. “And a lot of the customers have thanked me so much for bringing color to Windsor and just opening this up and also for being open early in the morning, because you can’t really find a lot of places around here that are open for coffee in the morning.”
Fizz Fusion is open from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, 9 a.m.-7 p.m. on Saturdays and 9 a.m.-6 p.m. on Sundays.
It has successfully drawn the breakfast crowd.
“We get the teachers, we get students,” Ciula said. “It’s so funny to me that the students come early in the morning, and a lot of them get the dirty sodas early in the morning.”
She has also had people ask about catering.
“Yesterday we delivered 50 drinks to Windsor Elementary School,” she said. “The teachers placed an order, and we delivered them.”
A lot of Fizz Fusion’s clientele is from Windsor, with some customers coming from Franklin, Smithfield and Suffolk.
“I get a lot of pass-through traffic because they stop by, and they’re like, ‘Oh, that’s cute, we wanted to check it out,’” Ciula said.
Fizz Fusion has already participated in two fundraisers, donating 25% of its revenue from a pre-determined time slot.
The business currently has 11 employees.
“There’s usually about two to four people working,” Ciula said. “Now that we’ve opened up the drive-through, on busy days, I like to have four.”
To learn more about Fizz Fusion, visit its Instagram page @fizzfusiondrinks, its Facebook page called Fizz Fusion, and/or its TikTok page called fizzfusiondrinks.
