Last night was the grand opening party of Pinkberry Dallas, the frozen yogurt store that started the tart frozen yogurt craze in 2005. Back then, you couldn’t open up an In Touch without seeing a photo of Leo DiCaprio or Lindsay Lohan chowing down on the stuff, and rumor had it that lines were so long you had to wait an hour for a taste of the Swirly Goodness (not our term: that’s what Pinkberry press release calls it). We didn’t see any celebs last night (does Lucy Wrubel count?), but there was a searchlight, and there was a line out the door for the yogurt, so there. Our location, at Preston and Royal next to Barnes and Noble and the Merge clothing store, is the first in the U.S. outside of New York and California. The party was also the debut of Chocolate Pinkberry, and for now, we’re the only city that has it (woot!). It was explained to me that the chocolate comes from Mexico and is very expensive, because it’s tough to find chocolate that would mix with their yogurt and taste good. I thought the chocolate flavor was fine, but I like Pinkberry (and others like it) because of the tang, and chocolate doesn’t have it. I’m sticking with the original. Jump for photos and more info.
According to Pinkberry peeps, the store is going to shine above the rest of the frozen yogurt places we already have because they make their yogurt every day in-house using local ingredients when possible. The fruit for the toppings is fresh every 24 hours, etc. Franchise owner (and SideDish lover) Adam Saxton said the deal was about a year in the making. He also told us about all the toppings, which include gluten-free brownies, coconut macaroons (yes please), organic gummy bears, all kinds of fruit, and a few cereals. Original, pomegranate, coconut, passionfruit, green tea, and chocolate flavors will be for sale.
Pinkberry is open from 10am–11 pm every day. A small yogurt without topping costs $2.75 and a small yogurt with topping is $3.95, which is less than I usually spend at Yogilicious/Yumilicious when I’m free to go crazy and add six different kinds of cereal. If you’ve sampled the rest of the yogurt in town you should definitely try Pinkberry–they were the first ones doing this in the states and many companies have totally copied their interior design, topping choices, etc. It almost feels a little late in the game for a new yogurt store to open, but judging from the looks of things last night, people are still really excited about yogurt. Go try it and let us know what you think.
