Frozen yogurt boom, again.

[randomness]

theloriest and I were driving past the many, many new frozen yogurt places which have popped up on Mass Ave. in the last year when I let loose one of my pet rants. (It's a small one, really. It only gets free when I see one too many froyo shops.)

To me, frozen yogurt isn't a replacement for ice cream. It's a different frozen treat entirely. Sometimes--like tonight--I want frozen yogurt. Other times, ice cream is what I crave. theloriest pointed out that for her, soft serve and hard packed are also different from each other. I can agree with that.

And there are other times when what I want is Italian ice. Which is yet again different from shaved ice. To me, they're different desserts and fill different niches, even if they are all frozen. None of them replace each other, any more than Greek yogurt replaces rice pudding or almond tofu (杏仁豆腐).

bedfull_o_books said it all reminded her of the froyo boom of the '80s, when TCBY franchises were popping up everywhere. Here we are again, thirty years later. That's about the time it takes for a new generation to come along.

Are we in a froyo bubble? Daniel Gross ends a piece for the Daily Beast by asking:

Is there room for all these fro-yo shops? Probably not. But we are nowhere near saturation. There are plenty of upscale towns that may only have two or three fro-yo outlets. And there are vast stretches of the nation that have yet to be carpet-bombed with cutesy shops. At some point, the fro-yo business could run into a deep freeze.

Camberville has already been carpet-bombed.

Comments

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Yes, soft serve and hard pack are two different desserts to me, too.

At this point, when I'm at your random ice cream stand, the kind that's usually only open in summer, I go for the soft serve because I like it a lot and I associate it with summer. I save the hard pack for when I'm some place that does it really well, like Mt Tom. (I went there two consecutive nights. I think Saturday night I got chocolate peanut butter by mistake, they were BUSY.)

And you know how I get about Rita's. Though Rita's seems to have phased out that custard and italian ice combo I like so much! Though obviously I could buy one of each and make my own if I really wanted to...

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Yes, soft serve and hard pack are two different desserts to me, too.

I thought of you when she said that, in fact. :)

Though Rita's seems to have phased out that custard and italian ice combo I like so much!

That's funny, I thought it was a pretty popular combination. But yeah, you can certainly construct it yourself.

[donnad.livejournal.com]

I am with you on this completely. Frozen Yogurt is not a substitute for ice cream, any more than shaved ice is for Italian ice. ANd Italian ice is not Gelato. Sherbet is not sorbet (sherbet contains milk, sorbet does not.)

All these things that people lump into the same category.
Ice cream, Frozen yogurt, frozen pudding, ice milk.
Sherbet, sorbet, Gelato.
Italian Ice, shaved ice.
They are all very different.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

There are several froyo shops in Andover, which isn't a huge surprise given the demographic.

OTOH, there are also at least 3 froyo shops in Dracut, which is a very working-class kind of place. I rarely, if ever, see customers in them.

I've read that they are the latest franchising craze for Asian immigrants. Hope it's not some sort of a scam (or many scams.)

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

There's a new froyo shop in Amherst, saw it this morning. And yet that town no longer has a Newbury Comics-- PRIORITIES, AMHERST, PRIORITIES!!!

Ahem.

[fin9901.livejournal.com]

Don't forget frozen custard which is a different thing as well. I made many fine trips to the frozen custard stand in Lafayette IN.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Definitely. We're lucky enough to live within a mile of a really good frozen custard place that's open all year.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Haven't found an exceptional soft-serve yet.

There is excellent soft-serve at a local high-end chocolate chain in Quebec City. I know, this isn't immediatly helpful. But the maple flavor, dipped in high-quality dark chocolate, gets raves from cme and bedfull_o_books.

Say, what do you think of Beal's ice cream, in and around Portland? A friend from Maine posted about it not long ago.

[chris-warrior.livejournal.com]

i'm looking forward to maybe getting frozen yogurt at Sweet Frog for the first time tonight because they texted me a coupon. it's a "sold by weight, put whatever you want in your bowl"-type place.

this will, however, not substitute for teh gelato i will not doubt get up in Maine next week. :)

[stolen-tea.livejournal.com]

We have a lot of new frozen yogurt chains here, too. But the real good stuff, IMO, is our local gelateria, our local frozen custard maker, and our local ice cream makers. :>