The Decline of Qoola Frozen Yogurt

Fro-yo girl here. It’s painful to document a froyo chain’s demise but I need to document good and bad news. It seemed like a few years ago, Qoola was growing quite a bit and becoming Western Canada’s self-serve frozen yogurt chain. They added a froyo truck, introduced new products, switched to organic Canadian froyo, and introduced new store concepts like Qoola Fresh which included healthy entrées, desserts, and sandwiches.

Qoola started with one store in Vancouver, BC in 2008. While it didn’t initially serve Canadian yogurt, it later made the switch to organic frozen yogurt from Ontario’s Mapleton’s Organic Dairy Farm. I visited the original location in Vancouver while it was still serving American froyo and wasn’t self-serve.

Now every time I try to visit their website, I get a message about a mass injection attack. This has been going on for months, so I am assuming that they aren’t paying attention to their website. I’m not able to visit the website to see their list of locations. Most of them were in British Columbia.

There are still occasional tweets, FB posts, and Instagram posts from @qoola, but these are few and far between. Their current LinkedIn profile says that they have 18 locations. I have a feeling that number hasn’t been updated in quite some time. What’s particularly alarming is how several shops didn’t even last a year.


OPEN

1. Richmond, Aberdeen Centre 
2. York Lanes, York University 
3. Garden City 
4. Guildford 
5. Robson, Vancouver 
6. Hillside Mall, Victoria 
7. Uptown, Victoria 

CLOSED

1. Cook St. Village Victoria 
2. Coquitlam Centre (grand opening in 2017, already closed) 
3. Metrotown, 2250 4700 Kingsway, Burnaby, BC V5H 4N2 
4. 2945 Jacklin Rd, Langford, BC, V9B4V5 
5. Park Royal, West Vancouver 
6. UBC 
7. North Vancouver 
8. Westshore Town Centre, Victoria 
9. Square One, Mississauga 
10. Pacific Center, Vancouver 
11. Oakridge, Vancouver 
12. Yates, Victoria 
13. Orchard Park, Kelowna 
14. Market Mall, Calgary 
15. Woodgrove, Nanaimo 
16. Greenbelt, Makati, The Philippines 

There were 4 locations in late 2011, 16 locations in December 2014 and 21 locations in 2016. They acquired two Yeti Yogurt locations in 2016 and both of those closed quickly. Twenty one might have been the peak number. Things are looking grim for froyo in the Pacific Northwest area.

You know you love me. X0 X0, fro-yo girl.

Looking for more frozen yogurt news, discussion boards, and resources? Check out the International Frozen Yogurt Association website at http://internationalfrozenyogurt.com/. The IFYA is the independent voice of the frozen yogurt industry.

Fancy Froyo Spoons: Qoola

Fro-yo girl here. I’ve actually been to Qoola before, when I visited Vancouver, Canada. However, this was quite some time ago and they hadn’t introduced Qoola spoons then. I first learned about the new spoons, which feature the beaver mascot, Qoover, last April (2016), so they are relatively new. Qoover is adorable and he obviously loves hockey, since he’s wearing a hockey jersey and he’s the team captain. He’s clearly a proud Canadian. You can see his tail on the flipside and his jersey says Team Qoola 08.

They seem to come in four colors: yellow, pink, orange and green. It doesn’t look like all the locations have the spoons, based on Instagram photos.

My friend brought back a few spoons for me, from Vancouver. Thanks, S!

You know you love me. X0 X0, fro-yo girl.

Looking for more frozen yogurt news, discussion boards, and resources? Check out the International Frozen Yogurt Association website at http://internationalfrozenyogurt.com/. The IFYA is the independent voice of the frozen yogurt industry.

Vancouver Fro-yo Report

Fro-yo girl here. While I wasn’t able to go to every fro-yo shop in the greater Vancouver area, I think I covered the downtown and West End area. This is what I found:

* Saporito, 1703 Robson St. (West End): Gelato place that replaced Blueberry. Blueberry served fro-yo and Saporito has one fro-yo machine and one fro-yo flavor, original tart. I wanted to try it but it was closed for the week.
* Footo Delights, 820 Homer St. (Downtown/Yaletown): Tiny Asian owned bakery cafe that replaced Froyo Swirl. They have one flavor of fro-yo, original tart, and some interesting toppings (but no mochi).

* Yogen Fruz, 1286 Robson St. (West End): I was surprised to only find one Yogen Fruz, looked like a typical YF, on the small side
* Qoola, 1116 Denman St. (West End): Their original location, with 4 fro-yo flavors, it just closed (for good). I managed to try it (just in time). They have 4 other locations.
* The Milkman, 1689 Johnston St. (Granville Island): Has sweet soft serve fro-yo (chocolate and vanilla) and Canadian style mix in yogurt (yogurt base mixed with frozen fruit in a machine).

I did get lost on the way to Pinkberry’s Vancouver location (its first in Canada). Why can’t it be closer to downtown? I hopped on a bus to take me across the bridge into West Vancouver.


Overall, I was surprised by the lack of fro-yo, the lack of tart fro-yo flavors and the lack of self-serve fro-yo. There’s only one fro-yo shop in the downtown area. The West End has the highest concentration of fro-yo shops which isn’t surprising considering that’s also where most of the Korean restaurants are. There are more gelato shops than fro-yo shops and some of these had yogurt gelato.

Maybe people are too busy eating $1.56 slices of pizza? I was expecting a more vibrant fro-yo scene in Vancouver.

You know you love me. X0 X0, fro-yo girl.