Frozen Yogurt Shop Design - Success Story! Commercial Interior Design News

PinkBerry‘s success is not an overnight success story. Over 100 frozen yogurt shops around the world in just 5 years! A perfect match between a restaurant owner and an architect created a unique concept which really took off. So what did really lift the business off the ground so fast? Here are 5 main reasons that I found from a great article – an interview with the owners themselves.

1. A perfect combination of a designer and an open minded client. Shelly Hwang was working on her Tea Room idea when she hired her future partner Young Lee to be a designer. When the Tea Room concept failed the two decided to try a completely different and new concept – yogurt shop.

3. The new frozen yogurt is fat free, low on sugar and still tastes great! Instead of trying to make it taste good by using sugar and fat the owners took a different approach looking at what is being done overseas. “I got the idea for this kind of yogurt when I visited Vienna in 1993 and first tasted a specific kind of soft serve gelato-like yogurt…” Lee. Shelly refined the taste of the yogurt to perfection.

3. Keep the concept simple. The idea is to concentrate on only a few flavors of yogurt instead of having a variety of different products. Simplicity is the real key here which allows more time for mastering your product’s uniqueness.

4. Quality of design and materials. The interior design is a great reflection of your business’s essence. Trying to convince even the landlord was tough but in the end the results were obvious. “I would tell them my design ideas, which included $600 tables, $350 chairs and a $1,200 bench. I wanted to use an expensive build-out that made everything reflective. They thought we were crazy to spend that kind of money when the average yogurt ticket was only $6.” You don’t want to show up as an amateur to your clients when you are creating a new concept.

5. Have fun with the image design! Pinkberry has a pebble floor that reminds us of hot summer day at the beach when you can’t wait to get ice-cream! Lee specified Philippe Starck’s Victoria Ghost chairs and a George Nelson-inspired bench. “Scandinavian designs give the place a retro-modern look with green circle dots to evoke Danish butter and dairy products.” Le Klint lamps look like yogurt swirls.