Yogurt shop transplants L.A. vibe

By: CHRIS BAGLEY - Staff Writer | Wednesday, January 3, 2007 9:40 PM PST ∞

TEMECULA -- Its nook in one of the shopping strips on Winchester Road may not scream "trendy," but the owners of the frozen-yogurt shop are betting that it will generate a little of the same craze that it stirred up in hip neighborhoods of Los Angeles last year.

The original Pinkberry opened as a single shop in 2005, in a pedestrian neighborhood off Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood.

The yogurt comes in just two flavors, "plain" and "green tea." The recipes are original, according to the company. Pinkberry is similar in consistency to ice cream and other frozen yogurts, but tart like the stuff that's made from bacteria culture and suggested by your spouse as a healthy breakfast food.

It proved popular in the immediate neighborhood. Independent restaurant critics wrote about it on their Web logs and, by last summer, it was luring cross-town drivers to park illegally while waiting in line. Peeved neighbors asked the West Hollywood City Council to force it to move.

By the end of the year, the founders and franchisees had opened seven others in and around Los Angeles and two in New York. The Temecula shop opened in December, becoming the first outside the two metropolitan areas.

Lisa Sim, a Los Angeles resident whose mother co-owns the Temecula franchise, said she and her mother got hooked on Pinkberry last year, and risked parking tickets to get some. Like Shelly Hwang, who opened the West Hollywood store, the Sims are Korean-American. Confections similar to Pinkberry have also become popular in South Korea, but Lisa Sim said it appealed to her for the same reasons as other Angelenos: as a healthy snack served in a trendy shop.

"I wasn't that crazy about it when I first tasted it," Sim said. "I was expecting it to taste like ice cream, but it was different."

It remains to be seen whether Pinkberry will catch on in Temecula. At $4.95 for a modest-sized cup, it doesn't exactly challenge other frozen-yogurt shops on price. And Southwest County doesn't have the same culinary scene as Los Angeles, with enthusiastic bloggers helping to popularize the newest specialty.

The shop was empty one afternoon last week.

Still, Sim and her mother say they've already gotten several repeat customers who are drawn by the unique yogurt and the decor. The shop feels vaguely space-age, with lime green the dominant color and a motif of ovals and circles in the wall patterns and the forms of the translucent plastic chairs.

The decor is uniform from one location to the next, whether franchise or company-owned. A representative of Pinkberry in Los Angeles said the company is continuing to process dozens of franchise applications, but has stopped accepting new ones.

-- Contact staff writer Chris Bagley at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2615, or cbagley@californian.com.

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