The dessert chain Pinkberry is all the rage in Southern California. They serve "frozen yogurt" in a clean, minimalist store with Philippe Starck furniture and sell designer accessories like $60 dog bowls.

I put quote around frozen yogurt because the Pinkberry Wikipedia page links to a now pay-blocked archive article in the LA Times in which they sent samples of Pinkberry to a lab that found that it did not contain enough bacterial cultures per gram to qualify to call their product "frozen yogurt" with all its attendant health benefits.

I think it tastes fresh, with more of that sour true yogurt taste than stuff like TCBY's in the 80's, but at $5 for a medium (8 oz) 3 topping yogurt, it ain't cheap, and the lines at the stores during peak hours are more than it's worth.

I don't know which store inspired which, but a whole host of frozen yogurt competitors have sprouted up, all clustering around similar sounding names. Besides Pinkberry, there's Red Mango, Kiwiberri, Snowberry, Yogurberry, IceBerry, and Berri Good. Straight from Korea to LA, it's the frozen yogurt revival.

Eric and I have discussed opening a business selling toppings right next door to Pinkberry locations. Customers could save the $0.95 they charge per topping by ordering their yogurt plain and then walking next door to choose from our even larger and cheaper selection of toppings. $0.95 for a teaspoon of Fruity Pebbles?