Archive for May 16th, 2008

Yogurtland



In preparation for this June’s fro-yolympics, I’ve been checking out some of the new frozen yogurt spots that have recently popped up in Manhattan. I was really excited to hear about Yogurtland’s opening - a transplant from LA, they offer Pinkberry-style plain frozen yogurt, but they are completely self-serve and have a large variety of flavors and toppings (I counted 16 different flavors the day I went). I asked for a sample container (they only have large and super-large containers to put frozen yogurt in), and I sampled all 16 flavors :) Here are the frozen yogurt dispensers:

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The flavors in rotation on the day we went were the following: Vanilla (pretty good), chocolate (pretty good), cookies and cream (awesome), New York cheesecake (okay), cappuccino (awesome), plain tart (very icy and sweet), peach (very artificial), peach tart (very artificial), mango (not bad), mango tart (not bad), green apple tart (extremely artificial), taro (chalky), strawberry (very artificial), strawberry tart (very artificial), blueberry tart (very artificial), and green tea (not bad).

Yogurtland also had a lot more toppings than any frozen yogurt store I’ve ever visited:

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Some of the toppings include: pomegranate seeds, gummi bears, mangoes, blueberries, cookie dough, NY cheesecake chunks, and granola.

Dispensing the frozen yogurt was harder than I thought (so credit to the fro-yo experts that work at Pinkberry, Red Mango, Flurt, etc), but I also think the Yogurtland mixture was a lot icier than other frozen yogurt shops. We ended up getting half mango frozen yogurt and half plain (tart) frozen yogurt with blueberries and mangoes:

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Most of the flavors tasted a little artificial (I spoke with an employee and he said that everything is sent over in large milk cartons that are poured into the machines - it’s similar to the way Red Mango and Pinkberry make their frozen yogurt). The price of the frozen yogurt is only $0.39 cents/ounce, which is really cheap (if you remember from the Fro-Yolympics, most of the frozen yogurt shops charged around $0.60 cents/ounce).

I think Yogurtland will do really well - not only are they competing with plain frozen yogurt shops (Pinkberry, Red Mango, and Yolato are all within walking distance), they’re also in the same playing court as Tasti-d-Lite and Frogurt (the brand of yogurt served at Bloomingdales, Zabars, Cafe Lalo, and Lord and Taylor). I didn’t see any health information nearby, but an employee told me that they just signed a contract with Danon to

Tip: Definitely ask for a sample container because their flavors don’t taste the same as the stuff you get at other yogurt shops in the city!

How to get to Yogurtland:

Yogurtland
267 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10014
212-206-1824