Menchie's Frozen Yogurt Opens at Crocker Park

Menchie’s Frozen Yogurt held its grand opening at this weekend, during which the store brought in over 200 customers and made roughly $5,000 over three days. The frozen yogurt shop is one of several that recently opened in Northeast Ohio.

If you’ve never been to a self-serve frozen yogurt store, think of it as a salad bar. After choosing a yogurt flavor or two —lettuce—you can then add toppings ranging from crushed candy bars to pretzels to fresh fruit—carrots, tomatoes, dressing.

The store charges 45 cents plus tax per ounce, and the average customer’s frozen yogurt costs between five and six dollars.

“People go pretty overboard,” said Menchie’s employee Sarah Blocksidge. “Just because it’s something new and they don’t know what to do with themselves.” 

The most popular frozen yogurt flavors are cake batter and red velvet, Blocksidge said.

“We have cake batter on back order,” she said. And rainbow sprinkles are the topping that goes the fastest.

Audrey King, 14, and Danielle LeGallee, 14, both students at North Ridgeville High School, came all the way to Crocker Park just to try Menchie’s.

“You can make it however you want and there’s no other place like it,” King said. Her favorite topping was the frosted animal cookies.

“It’s original!” said LeGallee, whose favorite topping was the cheesecake bites.

Other customers came from Elyria and Berea and stopped in as a break from their afternoon shopping. But according to Blocksidge, nighttime is the busiest for the frozen yogurt store, which is a popular destination after dinner or a movie.

“Once 7 p.m. hits that’s rush hour time in Menchie’s world,” Blocksidge said.

For the grand opening on Friday and Saturday, the store had a character dressed up as Menchie, an ice cream cone person, taking pictures and visiting with customers.

Menchie’s employee Jacqueline Biben said there is a whole cast of characters that Menchie is friends with, including: Chip, Barry, Kiwi, Sprinkle, P.B., Mellow and Mookie. Most of the “gang” is made out of toppings that the store offers. For instance, Chip is a dog made out of chocolate chips. The store gives away cardstock cutouts of these characters with each purchase, so kids like to collect them.

The store is located at 24 Main Street in Crocker Park. There are also locations in , Fairview Park and . The chain started in California and now has over 100 locations in the United States and Canada.