by ANDREA FRENCH Staff Writer
Dozens of new frozen yogurt places are being opened, and it is no secret why they are so successful. Similar to regular soft serve ice cream, frozen yogurt has the same consistency. However, this yogurt comes in many more varieties of flavors. Yo Mon, Crave, Wicked Twist, Let’s Yo, Red Berry, Kiwi, Blu Spoon, Pink Berry, and 16 Handles are all of the frozen yogurt stores located around Monroe. All of these stores have the same general concept in common. When you enter the store you realize that this is not your average ice cream place. There are about 10 machines located in the back that appear unattended. These yogurt stores are all self-serve. As you continue to enter the store, customers pick up one of the ‘one size fits all’ bowls. Next, you can pick and chose what flavors of yogurt you want. This is one of the best features of these stores – you can make your cold treat exactly how you want it. “You would think that frozen yogurt is gross and that ice cream would be better. But once you eat it, it’s really good and its even healthier than ice cream!” says freshman Catarina Santo. There is no limit to the amount of anything that you can put into your bowl. Birthday cake, cookies and cream, red velvet cake, vanilla, chocolate, nutella, pralines and cream, orange, raspberry, and kiwi are just a few examples of the wide variety of flavors available. After you have carefully selected all the flavors of yogurt you want, you move on to the best part – the toppings bar. At the toppings bar, found in each and every one of the fro yo stores, there are about 30 different toppings to choose from. Unlike typical ice cream places where one or two toppings were the limit, here you can have as many as you like. There is a wide array of fresh fruits, along with Oreos, peanut butter cups, cookie dough, M&M’s, coconut, and just about anything else you could imagine. Next, there are a series of containers containing marshmallow, hot fudge, hot caramel, Nutella, and peanut butter. After you have finished making your sweet treat just the way you like, you have to pay for it by the ounce. In each of these places, the cost is just 49 cents per ounce. Once the cashier has weighed and priced your yogurt, they will put a spoon into your yogurt and then off you go! “Yo Mon and Lets Yo are amazing. I never though I’d like frozen yogurt but now I’m obsessed,” says freshman Taylor Zeni. The main reason why these places have become so popular is because they put the customer in control. It allows you to make your yogurt exactly how you want it, with no limit on how much you can put in your cup, or how many flavors or toppings you can get. “Yo Mon is like a party in my mouth!” says freshman Samantha Fasbach. Coming in the summer of 2012 is a yogurt place on Applegarth Road near the Wawa. So many people in Monroe talk about how good these yogurt places are, and now we are finally getting one.