Self-serve frozen yogurt stores
 

Talk about a fad explosion...

1. How many have opened recently within 5 miles of your house?
2. How many do you think will be around this time next year?

For me, it's 4 and 1.

I do wish some started carrying soy-based frozen yogurts. Miss Swede is allergic to dairy, so she's always left to having their sorbets (while very tasty, just isn't the same as going out for ice cream).

Shoprite near my house has it... Quite a hit, that they had to install another machine.

I do see many customers, enjoying their soft serve ice cream / yogurt, and shopping, coming back to top the bowl before heading to the register.

In essence, what ever they ate while at the store while shopping is free.

I wish they had them near us! I tend to get cravings for soft serve at 9 or 10 PM, just after ice cream places have closed for the evening, and just after McDonald's (last resort) has shut off their machine to clean it. The number of times Mr. Kipper has driven somewhere to get soft serve for me, only to end up coming home without ice cream is ridiculous. :)

There was one near my old office and I totally loved it. Ten daily flavors (well three that were always there and seven that rotated) and fruit and other toppings. This time of year, it was lunch more than any other place.

They of course were using the drug dealer mentality, get people use to it, and then go up in price (you paid by the ounce) pretty much raising the price 75%. They are still pretty busy though.

You need to be in a huge traffic area and have to offer something else (this was offering coffee too)

Don't complain - you can hardly find any in the UK... it's only since I moved to the Middle East that I've experienced frozen yoghurt in all it's glory!!!

He's threatened to buy one of those for me. :) Well, probably more for his sanity. :D

Although, considering we'll also occasionally give the dogs a small serving of vanilla ice cream, I have no doubt that if we installed one in our house, the dogs would figure out how to operate the machine. Or, at least how to turn on the ice cream machine, and we'd come home to find that they'd emptied it. :D

They haven't caught on here in Durham yet, but when I lived in the Phoenix area it seemed there was one on every block. I went to them occasionally, they're not terrible, though for my money I prefer ice cream.

There was 1 here in the STL area in 2009. There are now 22+, with more opening every day. I enjoy it, but this is ridiculous.

I expect 2/3 to shut down within 2 years.

Pinkberry has been all over NYC for the last several years...I think the trend starts on the coasts and works its way in. A year after I noticed Pinkberrys in NYC, I saw Yogen Fruz in Chicago.

Pinkberry isn't self serve in New York City though, unless they have changed.

You can get frozen soft serve ice cream or yogurt almost anyplace, but the self serve stuff is still not all that common.

Oh, sorry. I missed the part about self serve. I saw "self" and thought "soft". :)

I keep thinking they are and when I pass by one look in. :D

The one on 6th and 26th or so has it right, have two container sizes, huge and jumbo, so that anybody who doesn't know fills it 1/3 or 1/2 way up and is still spending a fortune before they put all the toppings on.

I've seen people end up with a pound and a half in the large container, barely getting any change back from a $10 bill

"They haven't caught on here in Durham yet,"

But in Burlington/Elon...they have a few and the (college) kids are crazy for it - probably spending more on toppings than soft serve!

Yogurtland recently opened near me. I can't stand the stuff.