Question Of The Week: How Many Damn Frozen Yogurt Places Does This City Really Need?

• Thinking about Ted Drewes, Anonymous?

• I like Custard, why can't we get some frozen custard in Dallas. Harry's is good, but getting over to Knox, especially when driving the long bed dually is a real trick. Guess I'll keep going to Micky D's and eat their $1 dip cones and sundaes. That's probably the real competition these guys are facing. Custard is Egg-salent.

• The proliferation of frozen yogurt shops illuminates the State of the Union, so to speak. What you have are people who have lost their jobs or their financial security no longer wanting to work for "the man". They find a follow-by-numbers business with pretty colors and a cute name and dive right in. What they don't take the time to research is just how hard running your own business is. Landlords do not care that you have your yogurt shop on one end of the strip center and another one wants to come in at the other end. They've got space to rent! Just sign your five year lease and personal guaranty sucker. And you think you'll be able to leave your shop in the hands of two teenagers at night while you go home to hang with the family but say goodbye to your sales when said teenagers give their friends freebies all night. Oh, and there is payroll and triple nets and advertising...yogurt will surely pay for all of that right? Get real! Remember all of the Super Suppers and Dream Dinners and the like that were all the rage 3-4 years ago? Where are they now? Where are all of the Paint-Your-Pottery joints? Where are all the UPS stores?

• It's a trend headed for some contraction, but probably not total collapse, just because the start-up and operating costs for a frozen yogurt shop are pretty low. All you need is a sink and a Taylor soft serve machine and you're good to go. Making the stuff is idiot proof (and idiot labor is cheap). Most shops are only making a few flavors (unlike ice cream shops that have to make dozens). Space requirements are limited. A lot of the chain aspirants will probably pull out (or dump stores onto franchisees) at some point, but many of the mom & pop shops will be around for a long time.

• Chapman's Chili Kitchen is sponsoring the KNON benefit this Sunday night at Pearl at Commerce in downtown Dallas. 5:00 - 9:00PM. $6 in advance, $10 at the door, gets you dinner and four hours of music. All proceeds go to KNON. I would assume all these new yogurt places will be gone in 24 months. It's a new old fad with $$$ from investors. John Antioco, the guy that tanked Circle K and Blockbuster, is behind one of them. By the ounce pricing seems reasonable until you realize how much M&Ms and raisins weigh. And how many people really know how to pour a 3 - 4 ounce serving from a soft serve machine?

• The last announcement seemed interesting: live culture stuff seems interesting because it seems like it might actually taste like yogurt, and the by the ounce pricing seems to allow for sane portions with little tastes of stuff on top. But I thought of new frozen yogurt places as being like the 80s. It's most odd to have them all starting up now, and at the end of a summer too, where they're about to have to weather a cool season without the padding of a warm season first. If it's excellently tasty and innovative, I hope to hear about it so I know it's worth the expedition.

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