We are a little behind in our frozen dairy news, as it seems like new ice cream and frozen yogurt spots open on an almost weekly basis. But recently frozen yogurt and ice cream shops have actually been closing too. Does this signal the beginning of the end of the seemingly unstoppable trend? You be the judge.
Yogurtland: This new self-serve frozen yogurt spot on 80th street and Amsterdam Avenue opened a little over a month ago. It’s the chain’s fifth location in New York. Yogurtland is just across the street from a new Pinkberry, so if you get a yogurt and you don’t like it you can throw a tantrum, roll on the ground for about 20 feet, get up, dust yourself off, and buy a new frozen yogurt.
Orange Leaf: Another new self-serve spot opened a little over a month ago on Amsterdam between 85th and 86th streets. This store is across the street from a relatively new Tasti-D-Lite, so that you never have to go a full block without buying a frozen dairy product.
Pinkberry: They giveth us a Pinkberry and then they taketh one away. Even as the new Pinkberry opened on 79th and Amsterdam a couple of months ago, the one on Columbus and 75th has closed.
Scoop: The organic ice cream shop on 90th and Broadway, which got pretty good reviews from people we’ve talked to, appears to have served its last…scoop. A tipster wrote in that the ice cream counter was gone and the place has closed up shop. The phone isn’t working.
A new Chipotle has just opened on Broadway and 83rd Street.
It’s too bad about Scoop, they sold locally made organic ice cream. The Salted Caramel flavor was outstanding. I guess I must be in the minority as I have never had the urge to go into any of the yogurt establishments that have popped up everywhere. It’s hard to believe many of them will survive over the long-term.
Remember TCBY (this country’s best yogurt)? Remember I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt. Same thing is about to happen with 2/3 of these shops.
Yogurtland…Shmogurtland!
The all-time best name for a yogurt chain was out in La-La Land, where a female body-builder named Heidi Miller started a company she called:
“Heidi S FroGen YoZurt Shoppes.”
Despite the cutesy-poo name and the fancy-shmancy “Shoppes” (pronounced “Shop-pees”? “Shopp-ees”?) it went bankrupt in 1995.
Yogurt was tasty. And the idea WAS clever…probably too much so for L.A.
OMG (and I am too old to use that abbreviation) — I totally remember Frogen Yozurt.
The Scoop seems to have been troubled from the onset. They never had regular hours. Sometimes they would not open until the middle of the afternoon. They never posted their hours of business in the window. Scoop is the third failed business in that space since 90-Nuts closed. First there was a liquor store that never even opened (although it went as far as their posting the notice liquor license application in the window). Next came a convenience store that lasted about 6 weeks – then it closed – and now Scoop – which opened in July and closed in October. Perhaps it is time for an exorcism at the site.
Meh, Yogurtland is nothing special. Def creamier and sweeter than 16 handles, tastes more like ice cream and a bit artificial.
We’re digging the new self-serve froyo and smoothie place on Columbus and 72 st where Souper Sandwich used to be.
YOGURTLAND IS AWESOME! They have one near Stanford over on the west coast. Probably the best froyo in my book. Doesn’t have that off taste like some other places.
I worked for a mom and pop yogurt shop in San Luis Obispo called Bali’s. When I started 14 years ago we could hit 140 sales by 3 when I got off when we were the monopoly. But new shops started popping up every two years and when Yogurtland built across the street, our sales held at break even for 2 months but after the 3rd and 4th month we dropped dramatically. Our owner had to close Oct. 16, 2015. Now I am looking for work!