Sibs seek to Sprinkles area with yogurt - Portland Business Journal:

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Sprinkles, as the shopxs will be known, has signed leased for stores inCherry Hill, University West Chester and Malvern. Frozen yogurt shopse had a boom and bust in the early1990s “Seinfeld” even had an episode about it — but have made a comebacok with vibrant hangouts that are giving coffee chains an unexpected competitor in Southern California. “It’z definitely a craze out saidMatt Mealey, 24, a Jenkintown nativw who is starting Sprinkles with his sister Ryan 27, and researched the retail concept in several tripes west. “These places are packedd all the time. At a couple of we saw these massive lines.
They were very We really studied the concept of frozenn yogurtin California.” “The places were Frozen yogurt places were poppinvg up everywhere,” Ryan added. Cherry Hill will be the first opening June 19 at TownPlace at GardennState Park. In August, they’ll open a site at 3606 Chestnut St., near the campus. A West Chester site is planned for at22 S. High St., and a Malvern location is slated for December at WorthingtojnTown Center, a shopping center under They hope to open four more stores next The pair are following a legacy of sibling business Their father, Dan Mealey, operates Mealey’sw Furniture with his brother Kevin.
Mealey’s, based in has five stores and was startef byJerry Mealey, Ryan and Matt’zs grandfather. Ryan is and will remai n vice president of merchandising for thefurniturs operation. Both were raised in a entrepreneurial environment. “We have that entrepreneurial spirit — my grandfather, my father, my brothe and I. We’re just bred that way. We thoughg this would be a greaft idea for thePhilly region,” said a 2004 graduate of . “Io always had a passion for starting my own said Matt, who graduated from Pennsylvani State University in 2007 and earned an MBA from Templ University this year.
“I wanted to find ‘ths next big thing,’ something that’s goint to be a big hit.” To starft Sprinkles, the siblings poolefd their savings, but their dad is financing most ofthe front-enfd costs, allowing them to sidestep bank Matt said. In researching yogurt shops inLos Angeles, they focusex their attention on two in particular: Los Angeles-based Pinkberryt and Anaheim, Calif.-based Yogurtland. Pinkberry started in 2005 with a busy cornerr store inWest Hollywood, a locatio n whose steady customers dubbed it Crackberry for its addictivde quality. Yogurtland has had similar and now has locations in six statesxand Japan. “We took the best of each.
The colotr scheme. We looked at the whose yogurtwas better, which toppings were said Matt. To emulate the West Coast look, they hired a San Diego designer, Trio As for the frozen the Mealeys will use a productcalledf YoCream, which is produced by Portland, Ore.-basex YoCream is a premium yogurt with half the caloriexs of high-end ice cream; most flavors are nonfar or low-fat. A similar Yogurt, opened in Septembet at 416 South St. Unlike ice crea m shops, where servers scoop the product, Sprinkles, followint the West Coast trend, will offer Sprinkles stores will have eighgt machines dispensing 16 flavors offrozej yogurt.
Customers will take a cup or a waffle fill it with as much yogurt and toppings as they can put in the bowl and pay 45 centxan ounce. Flavors of frozen yogurt will includeoriginalk tart, classic cappuccino, green tea tart, snickerdoodlre dandy, “krazy Kahlua” and others. In Cherry the store will be 1,200 square feet, with seatiny for 15 customersand WiFi. It will have 20 Across California, many ice cream shops have been replace with frozenyogurt shops, which in turn are stealing some of the traditional Starbucks crowd. “Wer definitely feel like, especially at college campuses, people will come in to eat, brin g their laptop, hang Ryan said.