Frozen Yogurt Shops Bolster Business

If you lived in Hawaii, you might enjoy a nice cup of icy cold frozen yogurt in the middle of December.

This, however, is not Hawaii, and as the temperatures dip below freezing and you hunch your shoulders against the frosty winter winds on your way home from work, you might not be thinking, "Man, I could really go for something cold."

Most Park Slope residents have noticed the rapid rate at which frozen yogurt and ice cream shops are popping up along Fifth and Seventh avenues. This time of the year, however, proves challenging for the many stores competing for the rare mid-winter ice cream hankering.

Thusly, many frozen yogurt shops are adapting to the changing temperatures with changing menus. If you're a fan of Uncle Louie G's on Seventh Avenue and Eighth Street, you may have noticed that the famed ice cream shop is missing, and in its place is a pop up soup shop called The Soup Bowl.

Run by chef Richard Gussoff, the tiny shop, open now through March 1, offers standard fare such as split pea and vegetable, and tantalizing new flavors like lobster butternut squash bisque. Come spring, the store will revert back to Uncle Louie G's, thus making the space seasonally appropriate and annually profitable all at the same time.

Wicked Spoon owner Alex Rozhitsky had a slightly different idea to make a seasonal food like frozen yogurt appealing all year long: he opened his frozen yogurt shop in an Atomic Wings. "People are still ordering yogurt," said Olga Nachayeva, an employee at the store on Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue. "What's better to cool your mouth off after hot wings than yogurt?"

During the hot summer months passersby might stop in just for a frozen yogurt, but in the icy winter months, it's the wings that lure them in. The flat screen TVs on the walls playing ESPN keep them in their seats, and frozen yogurt is a sweet treat for dessert that sounds much more appealing after a spicy meal. Also tempting in the currently cold weather are Wicked Spoon's incredible toppings, such as balsamic sauce, cabernet berry sauce, Dulce de Leche, Lemoncello sauce, and Buffalo Wing peanuts. The flavors are offered year round but seem slightly more appropriate now that sweater weather is upon us. Rozhitsky recommends the Wicked Sonoma: original tart yogurt, blueberries, blackberry, and cabernet berry sauce.

Other yogurt shops in the neighborhood are following suit: on Fifth Avenue and Degraw Street, Scoopz has expanded to offer coffee, bagels, and cupcakes. Similarly, Oko Frozen Yogurt and Tea, on Fifth Avenue and Douglass Street, added a bevy of hot beverages to their list of goodies, including apple cider with ginger and orange and pumpkin lattes.

In the era of rising rents and plummeting profits, frozen yogurt shop owners have to make a profit year round in order to stay afloat. And with offerings like hot wings and lobster butternut squash bisque on the menu, they just might succeed.