Viva Yogurt Café: Family Friendly New Fro-yo Shop in Pleasanton

Fro-yo girl here. I’m back with another behind the scenes (behind the swirl) report. This time I had the opportunity to chat with Nicole, the general manager and Jiyoung, the CEO of Viva Yogurt Café.

Viva Yogurt Café opened recently in a residential part of Pleasanton, a few minutes from downtown. I can’t say that I know exactly where I was but I know it was by a sports park. During the opening day, it was over 100 degrees and they served thousands of people free fro-yo. The café feels cozy and friendly, more like a coffee shop than your typical fruity, sterile fro-yo shop.

In addition to their self-serve fro-yo (38 cents/oz), they serve coffee, Lupicia tea and jumbo & mini cupcakes. The cupcakes are made by a local baker and they sound really good (flavors include pina colada, lemon dream, rocky road, cookies n’ cream but I didn’t get to see any - they were sold out).

This is the first fro-yo shop for Jiyoung. She searched for the right fro-yo for a long time and selected Frogurt because she liked the creaminess and the fact that it’s all natural. Frogurt, by Wards Ice Cream, is so old school that they don’t even have a website. Jiyoung fell in love with the plain tart Frogurt at Bloomingdale’s famed 40 Carrots years ago while living in NYC…and she’s thrilled to be serving the same product at her shop. Plain tart is still her favorite flavor.

Frogurt doesn’t have as many flavors as other fro-yo brands and they only have one tart flavor. All the flavors that I tried were very smooth, creamy and sweet.

Viva offers catering (sounds like they’ll bring the fro-yo to you) and fundraisers.

Congratulations on the lovely new fro-yo shop and thanks J & N for the inside swirl.

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

* VIVA YOGURT CAFÉ: 3037 Hopyard Rd., Suite C, Pleasanton, CA

Custom Printed Fro-yo Cups

Fro-yo girl here. Fro-yo somehow tastes better when eaten out of a cute, branded cup and eaten with a nice spoon. The plain white cups are so boring. Printed logo cups are an easy, affordable way to build a shop’s brand and help the shop stand out from other fro-yo shops. Stickers are an option but they don’t look as nice especially if the sticker is crooked.


The two main suppliers of fro-yo cups (double poly paper hot/cold food containers) are Karat (www.lollicupstore.com) and CarryOutSupplies (www.carryoutsupplies.com). I’ve examined the Tuttimelon cup (manufactured and printed by Karat) and the cups for Icebee (APO brand, manufactured and printed by CarryOutSupplies). The Tuttimelon cup and Icebee cup have a similar weight and feel. I can’t spot any quality differences. The Yoppi cup Karat and APO cups are priced the same online.


CarryOutSupplies is willing to negotiate on prices and terms. Unlike other companies, they offer free storage so you don’t have to fill your garage with fro-yo cups. Shipping is free on all orders. Free custom printing is offered as well. They can provide custom molds.

I’ve eaten out of the APO cups many times (they supply Menchie’s, Yoppi Yogurt, Yogurt Passion, etc.). These are nice cups.

Special offer: Call Kirby at CarryOutSupplies at 626-262-6819 and tell them fro-yo girl sent you. You’ll receive a free case of colored spoons with your cup purchase. Contact Kirby for details.

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

Halloween Fro-yo Pictures

Fro-yo girl here. Thanks readers, for your Halloween related fro-yo tips. I visited Tuttimelon West Portal first because I like the surprise bag concept (reminds me of Sanrio). I was impressed by the carved pumpkins in the window. Someone had carved Tuttimelon into one of them! The surprise bags were kept in a creepy orange box that looked like a square jack o’lantern and had cobwebs inside.

Their pumpkin gelato is very good, sweet with lots of cinnamon flavor, but my heart belongs to fro-yo.

My bag of treats contained: $5 Tuttimelon gift card, mini Tootsie Roll pop (grape), eyeball eraser, stamper with a smiling dog?, pack of rainbow Twizzlers. Thanks Tuttimelon! Anyone else care to share what they received? Leave me a note.


Later I went to Tuttimelon Chestnut which apparently had the most elaborate Halloween decorations of all the Tuttimelon locations. There was a huge moving witch suspended above the gelato case, blood dripping from the gelato case, and several large ghouls, including one in the window that was holding a Tuttimelon cup. Also, they had a basket of assorted candies by the cash register. Cute!


Did anyone go to Tuttimelon Polk or Alameda yesterday? I wonder what Halloween surprises they had there.

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

Yogen Früz launches 3 mouth-watering NÜ mixes

Available today...three brand new fro-yo flavor mixes from Yogen Früz: Piña Colada, Key Lime Pie and Chocolate Almond frozen yogurt.

P.S. They also have pumpkin pie fro-yo till Thanksgiving.

Check out the new flavors, froyoholics.

Halloween Fro-yo Treats

Fro-yo girl here. I’ve compiled a list of Bay Area fro-yo shops that are celebrating my favorite holiday, Halloween.

HARMONY FROZEN YOGURT: Come in costume on Halloween and get 50% off your fro-yo and toppings. Good at all Harmony locations. They’re even closing early to celebrate Halloween. San Mateo closes at 6 PM, San Carlos and Burlingame closes at 7 PM.

BLUSH ORGANIC FROZEN YOGURT: Free fro-yo for kids 10 and under who come in costume from 5 – 9 PM on Halloween. Everyone else should say trick or treat. Dublin location only.

TUTTIMELON WEST PORTAL: With a $5 minimum purchase on Halloween, get a free bag of treats!

TUTTIMELON POLK & ALAMEDA: Something’s brewing at these locations on Halloween. It involves a raffle and other surprises.

If anyone dresses up as a big bowl of fro-yo, send me a picture (please).

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

* BLUSH ORGANIC FROZEN YOGURT: 4640-A Tassajara Road, Dublin, CA
* TUTTIMELON: 44 West Portal Ave., San Francisco, CA
* TUTTIMELON: 2125 Polk St., San Francisco, CA
* TUTTIMELON ALAMEDA: 2402 Central Ave, Alameda, CA

Ideal Number of Toppings and What People Like Best about Self-Serve Fro-yo

Fro-yo girl here. I recently posed the question: How many toppings would you want on your perfect cup of fro-yo? Readers favor simplicity. More people would rather have no toppings (13%) than five or more toppings (11%).

Two or three toppings clearly the winner with 58% of the vote. My perfect cup of fro-yo would include two toppings: one type of fruit and mochi (two toppings). The only time I’m seriously tempted to get more than two toppings is when the shop has more than one flavor of mochi or they offer a deal for three toppings (but not two toppings). My perfect bowl of fro-yo would also be eaten in a cute cup with a cute spoon (my smurf blue fro-yo cup fits the bill).

I also asked readers what they liked best about self-serve fro-yo? The results surprised me; I thought that price and having more sweet flavors would be more popular. The overwhelming majority chose the ability to combine more flavors and toppings as the attribute they liked best (61%). The next most popular attribute was the ability to adjust the fro-yo to toppings ratio (15%).

Are the results contradictory? Or could it be that most respondents think of full serve fro-yo when they think of the perfect cup of fro-yo? I’m hopeful that this is the case. Yes, full serve fro-yo shops usually have fewer flavors and toppings but the good ones focus more on quality than quantity (whereas the self-serve fro-yo tends to be about quantity rather than quality).

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

Snowee: New Fro-yo Shop in San Mateo

Fro-yo girl here. Snowee isn’t open yet, but I chatted with the owners last week to get the inside scoop (swirl?) . They’re focused on providing a cheerful, kid-friendly spot (wait till you see the upstairs) which can be rented out for parties and events. The walls are green and yellow and they’ve added artificial grass (it looks cute) to create a garden feel.

The fro-yo is self-serve and 39 cents an ounce. One flavor will be organic (Straus!), one will be sugar free and the rest will be a mix of sweet and tart flavors. The initial flavor line-up includes pumpkin, pistachio, chocolate, etc. They’ll have about 20 dry toppings, 12 wet toppings and many, many syrups. These syrups can also be added to their special snow ice (Snowee) dessert. Snowee is pre-flavored and soft and fluffy (like cotton candy). I asked if you could put fro-yo on Snowee but I was advised that it would be better to put Snowee on fro-yo (because the fro-yo is denser).

The menu will also include healthy, hot air-cooked snacks like air fries, air sweet potato fries, chicken strips and Kettle Corn.

The soft opening is planned for early this week. During the soft opening, they want to try out the fro-yo flavors to see which ones their customers like. Please let them know; they really want your feedback. Fro-yo will be 30% off. The menu will also be limited for the first few weeks (no Snowee, no fries).

During the grand opening weekend, fro-yo will be 50% off and they’ll hand out free samples of their snacks and Snowee.

The shop should be a nice place to hang out. It looks like the only place to get dessert on the street. They’ll have free wi-fi, gift cards, and frequent buyer stamp cards.

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

* SNOWEE: 168 25th St., San Mateo, CA