End of National Frozen Yogurt Month

Fro-yo girl here. It's the last day of June, which means it's the last day of National Frozen Yogurt Month. I hope you ate plenty of fro-yo this month.

In honor of fro-yo, I'd like to look at how frozen yogurt has performed according to Google Trends. Search volumes have been climbing steadily since 2007, though there are strong seasonal patterns. The searches peak during the summer, the favorite time for fro-yo consumption.

The majority of searches come from the U.S., followed by Canada. Australia, Brazil, and Great Britain round out the top 5. The Koreans have probably moved on to the next trend (roti buns?). Within the U.S., most of the searches occur in California (which everyone knows has the most fro-yo shops), followed by Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Hawaii.

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

Future Yogurt Shop Picture: Yoppi SF Westfield Centre

Fro-yo girl here. Today was one of those rare days when I actually made it downtown and to Chinatown. Tuttimelon Bear and I wanted to take our visiting friends from London to Tuttimelon. We also walked around SF Westfield Centre to look for signs of fro-yo. I took a picture of the future Yoppi Yogurt store. It's in the old Cefiore space. We didn't see any visible signs of the future Pinkberry in the food court area or Tuttimelon (by the theater). I couldn't look inside Yoppi but it says Coming Soon July 2010 on the outside.


My keen fro-yo eye spotted a Yogen Fruz kiosk inside the Metreon. They have two Mix It machines there. You can't get the Top It style at that location.

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

* YOPPI YOGURT: 845 Market St. #277, San Francisco, CA

Three Fro-yo Shops in One Mall, the New Trend

Fro-yo girl here. A couple of months ago, I wrote about how there were three fro-yo shops at the Great Mall (in Milpitas, CA). I found three in New Park Mall too (in Newark, CA). The Great Mall is huge and really crowded, so I can maybe see having two fro-yo shops there. But New Park Mall is a small mall in serious decline. I don't understand what the owner of the second shop is thinking and the owner of the third shop is wildly optimistic. I can't think of too many malls that are busy enough year-round to support that many fro-yo shops.

You could argue that only Orange Tree in New Park Mall is the only pure fro-yo shop. Good Luck Yogurt Shop sometimes has fro-yo and sometimes does not (you'd think with a name like Good Luck Yogurt Shop, they would always have yogurt). The third shop has sandwiches, smoothies, ice cream and fro-yo.

Will San Francisco Westfield Centre and Westfield Valley Fair be able to support three fro-yo shops? Time will tell.

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

Future Yogurt Shop Picture: Yogofina

Fro-yo girl here. Here's a picture that I took of the future Yogofina location on Lakeshore Avenue in Oakland, CA. I didn't see a building number, but it's right next to Arizmendi Bakery and very close to Yogurt Deluxe. I couldn't see anything (it's papered over) and the door wasn't open.

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

Father's Day Fro-yo Specials

Fro-yo girl here. If your father or someone you think of as a father likes fro-yo, I've compiled a list of Father's Day Bay Area fro-yo specials.

* Nubi Yogurt: Purchase $10 or more at any location and get a free Nubi Father's Day t-shirt (Ono is giving out shirts too, with a minimum $20 purchase)
* Blush Organic Frozen Yogurt: Purchase $25 or more in gift cards, get a free small fro-yo with 2 toppings OR buy fro-yo for yourself, get a free small fro-yo for your dad (mention Facebook)
* TCBY: Free cup or cone of fro-yo for dads
* Harmony Organic Frozen Yogurt, Burlingame location only: 50% off fro-yo till the end of the month...it's not a Father's Day special but part of their 1 year anniversary special

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

Northern California Soft Serve Show

Fro-yo girl here. I checked out today's Northern California Soft Serve Show, sponsored by Southwest Traders, at the Electro-Freeze Showroom in Pleasanton today. Attendance was free and most of the attendees were fro-yo shop owners. The show was a chance to meet the vendors and check out the latest in fro-yo. And there was free fro-yo.

TR Toppers table of toppings took up the center of the room. You could sample toppings like iced animal cookies, mini peanut butter cups, Andes mints, etc. They now offer mini fruit pies. New toppings included gold nuggets (pieces of chocolate), mini sour gummi worms and chocolate coated waffle pieces. I liked the strawberry fizzy candy - nice crunch and not too sweet.



There were 12 flavors of fro-yo available for sampling from Rainbow's End, Summit, and Miss Karen's. Summit had two new fro-yo flavors, maraschino cherry tart and mandarin orange tart. Southwest Traders no longer carries YoCream (a shocking turn of events, I'm not sure what happened). Miss Karen's has been around since the 1970s and I was curious to try their fro-yo. They had red velvet, butter pecan, chocolate decadence, pineapple express tart and genuine tart. The red velvet flavor was very, very sweet, like a regular chocolate fro-yo but sweeter. The pineapple express tart was very creamy and didn't have that refreshing quality that I like in tart fro-yo. The aftertaste was somewhat bitter.

Other vendors had samples of syrups, smoothies, and paper cups.

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

* ELECTRO-FREEZE: 1032 Serpentine Lane #102, Pleasanton, CA

Trader Joe's Yogurt Stars Review

Fro-yo girl here. Someone high up at Trader Joe's loves yogurt. They've introduced another yogurt product, Yogurt Stars. Crunchy star shaped vanilla cookies are dipped in three different yogurt coatings. The white stars are vanilla, the purple ones blueberry yogurt and the pink ones are raspberry. The vanilla ones are the best. The cookie is a bit salty and quite crunchy. The sweet, mild vanilla yogurt doesn't overwhelm the vanilla cookie. The raspberry ones are good too. The yogurt coating adds a creaminess and tartness. While I like the tarty blueberry yogurt coating, the blueberry flavor overwhelms the cookie flavor. I think these cookies would be great with fro-yo. They're $3.99 for an 11 ounce bag. They look like they're inspired by July 4th (star-shaped red, white & blue cookies)

4.5 out of 5 stars.

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