Subhead: Important Questions of our Time!
So the Pinkberry has closed for good on St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue.
Pinkberry joins several other FroYo joints to shutter in recents years on this same block...
Yogurt Station is now a piercings shop...
[High FroYo Season]
... the Red Mango, which opened after the CBGB shop closed, is now a tattoo shop...
... and Eastside Bakery (.net?) on the corner of Second Avenue served up the FroYo...
… and is now D.F. Mavens, which sells dairy-free ice cream, among other cafe items.
So! Four FroYo places have come and gone on this one block. Is it the block? Is it FroYo?
Dessert still lives here with Spot Dessert Bar and Spot Dessert Shoppe. Not to mention the D.F. Mavens.
16 Handles around the corner on Second Avenue is now left to fly the FroYo flag…
1) FroYo is a dying trend. Like cupcakes, it was trendy a decade ago. Folks have moved on (to bubble tea, macaroons, juice - also trends that will be short-lived)... but evidently people haven't caught on yet.
ReplyDelete2) Too many shops. It's relatively easy to open a FroYo shop. All you need is some machines and like some cups and spoons. No need for any specialized training or skill, so anybody can (and did) open a shop.
3) At 3-5 dollars a cup, you have to sell a LOT of FroYo to make EV commercial rents, especially on a prime street like St Marks. Landlords on St Marks are after Chipotle-size rents. Not going to happen when there is so much competition and not enough demand.
I don't eat ice cream or frozen yogurt in the cold weather months. For me these treats are for those hot summer days when it seems to make sense to eat something cold and somewhat frozen. In NYC this is a seasonal business and only a fool would put their life savings into this kind of business. Young adults find just about everything "new" and exciting when they move here which explains the sea of trendy food places opening here. I think only NYU freshmen eat FroYo these days.
ReplyDeleteBring back the old Do Jo with its outside tables where I had brunch for 30 years (the Do Jo near NYU sucks).
ReplyDeleteFroyo no longer gives one the self-illusion of selectivity.
ReplyDeleteAnd remember when people would line-up around the block for a free taste of new froyo flavs?
#SIoS
#tbt
If you have a FroYo shop with 1,000 square feet @ $120 Sq/ft a year, that's $120,000 in yearly rent.
ReplyDeleteSuppose your profit margin $2.50 for every transaction.
That requires 48,000 yearly transactions, or about 133 a day (open 360 days), or 16.7 transactions every hour just to pay off your yearly rent costs.
That's highly unlikely and doesn't even cover the payroll.
"Juice" is no more a trend than fancy and specialized coffee is a trend. Liquiteria opened in 1996, now there are five of them and I couldn't even get my damn smoothie this morning on 17th because it was so crowded. "Juicing"/juice fasting is pretty trendy, yes, but high-quality healthy food is not going anywhere. The Juice Presses of the world (with their dumb family infighting and emphasis on model clientele).
ReplyDeleteThis is almost surely not the case in the EV, but Frozen Yogurt establishments are the most common way for wealthy immigrants to make the necessary investments in order to receive permanent status. This can be seen particularly in the other Boroughs and other cities in the country.
ReplyDeleteBasically, those shops were never meant to be profitable, but rather to remain open long enough for the immigration paperwork to go through, the necessary checks to be completed and permanent status granted.
Take a drive through McAllen, Texas (or Queens) and wonder why it has dozens of empty FroYo storefronts.
Frozen yogurt was popular in freaking Ohio 20 years ago. There has been a more recent uptick in some cities because of the Korean yogurt surge (with Chinese knock offs not far behind), but like most things that have a low entry cost, the market has become saturated.
ha ha, see this is what happens when I don't get my daily smoothie: I can't finish sentences :p
ReplyDeleteThe Juice Presses of the world will fail but the Liquiterias will stay standing.
Likewise I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with froyo (secret East Villager shame: I enjoy the occasional froyo), we just don't need it on every damn street.
I hope Funkiberry fails next. That signage is hideous.
Start telling your elected leaders that we need a Retail Diversity law, good for residents and good for business, and maybe in a decade something will change.
ReplyDeleteLive by the trend die by the trend. Also It seems like "low-fat" as a selling point is kind of passe right now as nutrition science is second guessing the role of dietary fat in obesity/corpulence.
ReplyDelete"Juice" is no more a trend than fancy and specialized coffee is a trend."
ReplyDeleteJust because something has existed for a long time it can still be a trendy concept when marketed to the gullible as new and exciting, super healthy, etc... The juice thing is a trend in that juice shops are everywhere and they attract a younger generation which thinks they invented juicing.
I guess the kidults of NYC have outgrown this one. Hopefully this dying trend will take a few other trends down with it and we can get back to a world of normalcy...but I'm not holding my breath.
ReplyDeleteI think Ray's has put them all out of business. That little store down on Avenue A, with their specially crafted rainbow sprinkled frozen yogurt kid-sized (and priced) cones, just knocked the competition out of the running. If you had one of Ray's, you'd know what I mean.
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ReplyDeleteNot only is FroYo a trend that peaked a few years ago, it's also a treat that depends on heavy walking traffic from tourists, especially with these ridiculous sky high rents. Now that the Euro has fallen from $1.30 to $1.13, the Ruble has collapsed by 50%, and most other currencies are down against the strong dollar, the tourism biz in NY and the EV is going to suffer and these kinds of shops along with it.
But landlords don't care and keep renting to these high turnover businesses while successful stores like EV Cheese have to move every time a lease comes up. Yet it is these non-tourist businesses that are much better tenants to have since they don't depend on fads and tourists to survive.
Dojos used to be here and I have many good memories from eating and hanging out there, but I never went into Pinkberry and never will. I remember sitting at Dojos outside tables on the railing every summer, and how friends would walk by to talk and drink, door sitting inside freezing inside every time the patio door would open over a hot plate of Yakisoba noodles or a Soy Burger dinner with their tangy carrot dressing. I never got sick once from the hundreds of meals I had there because apparently anyone who ate there often enough eventually built up n immunity.
So thanks a lot to a another greedy landlord for taking away a favorite place of many people for a few bucks more, all so they could buy a bigger beachfront mansion and a newer Bentley
Since I started typing this comment, the neighborhood gained another 13 Duane Reades. Soon we'll all be eating nothing but packages of dollar cookies, Campbells soup and Fruit Loops from a single-serving cup. Corporate America is awesome.
ReplyDeleteI have lived in the EV for 5+ years, and this week is the first time I have given serious consideration to getting out of here.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to Duane Reade, all 4,000 of them have been waiting for you!
ReplyDeleteI have lived in the EV for 5+ years, and this week is the first time I have given serious consideration to getting out of here.
ReplyDeleteJanuary 29, 2015 at 2:47 PM
You should be a Comedian. With the utmost respect
UW
Eit will always be 16 Hindles to me.
ReplyDeleteThe explanation that it's a fakeyish store for immigrants waiting for their visas doesn't totally add up I these cases. At these rents it's a pretty big waste of money when you can accomplish the same thing with a store in Staten Island or HoHoKus.
January 29, 2015 at 2:47 PM moved here because of the froyo places. Now they gone and so is she.
ReplyDeleteAs the owner of 16 Handles of who moved to EV, NYC in 2008 in pursuit of starting my business as a 28 year old entrepreneur I'm really happy that it worked out. I immigrated to the US with my parents when I was 1 and am an American citizen. This store is not a front for a visa and yes its been profitable since the first year due to the awesome support of NYU students and EV residents. I made it a mission to give back to the community, NYU, and Trees for the Future from the start. There was animosity towards the frozen yogurt shops in EV from the start so nothing new here. I'm proud that we're one of the last ones standing and will continue to wave the froyo flag for EV proudly.
ReplyDeleteI guess coffee shops like deRobertis are a passing trend too, based on the logic presented here.
ReplyDeleteI keep forgetting to look: what's up with the former bakery (photo included in this post) at the NW corner of 2nd and St. Marks? Does it still have the "coming soon" sign for whatever it is... Vegan froyo? Gluten free Dippin Dots?
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