Making its debut on Toronto’s Bloor St. West strip back in November 201o, Menchie’s has taken the city by storm. And I mean that. I may have only inahled frozen yogurt eaten here 2 weeks ago, but I saw lineups out the door at this sweet little place months ago and thought, “holy schmoly!” And then I thought, “I’ll come back when I don’t have to elbow or hair pull”. Exaggeration, maybe, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
Menchie’s Frozen Yogurt is everything you could possibly want in an adorable sweet treat place. It’s cute, it’s fun, it’s creative, it’s pink and green (and if you’re like me, that colour palette will make your heart flutter a bit faster. You can tell I loved working with that on the scrapbook layout up top, yes?), and did I mention it’s an awesome place to hang out with friends or go on on a cute date? If you love frozen yogurt and having the freedom to let your creativity run wild, this is your place. It oozes the cuteness reminiscent of Asian stationery (just look at the frozen yogurt smiley face! You want to hug and squish it!) and it offers everything a sweet tooth could desire. The concept is simple: it’s a self-serve, pay-by-oz. frozen yogurt dessert café. I LOVE the concept and my best friend and I came here for a girly afternoon dessert date (after lunch and window shopping, of course) during her spring break a little over 2 weeks and god, we fell in love. We had so much fun! So here’s my step-by-step, bite-by-bite account of how this works.
Step 1: Grab a frozen yogurt cup (with or without the waffle bowl in it; the waffle bowl is $1 extra) from the cup station. Walk over to the frozen yogurt self-serve wall. I’m not kidding. This is a WALL with froyo machines. If I remember correctly, there are 10 flavours to choose from on a daily basis and flavours are rotated so that there’s always something different every day. Choose one flavour…or two…or five. This is the beauty! If you’re hell bent on creating a froyo mountain of one flavour, you can do that. If you’re indecisive and can’t make up your mind, you can go swirl 5 flavours into your cup and go to town! Flavours are also paired so you can swirl and combine the predetermined pairs if you want too. Pull the level down and start swirling the frozen yogurt into your cup! When you feel you’ve had enough, just push the lever up to stop and go on your merry way. Skip back and forth between stations if you like. It’s UP TO YOU! 😀 What I chose: creamiscle froyo and cake batter froyo, eeeee!
Step 2: Pick your sugary poison 😀 This is your chance to make your frozen yogurt your own special creation, choosing whatever toppings you want. Chocolate chips, Oreo cookies, gummy bears, sprinkles, granola, graham cracker crumble, nuts, chocolate bar chunks, shredded coconut, dried fruit, fresh fruit, peanut butter cups…oh, is that not enough? Well, there’s plenty more where that came from. Make it pretty, make it messy, make it you – go crazy! My best friend and I were skipping back and forth between bins and scooping goodies into our cups and it was so much fun. What I smacked onto my creamsicle and cake batter frozen yogurt: yogurt chips, graham cracker crumble, shredded coconut, and mini marshmallows!! It was like a swirly, fluffy orange and white cloud. Aww. And it tasted like one too. Not too sweet and so creamy and subtly fruity with the sweet crunchiness from the coconut and graham cracker crumble, mmm.
Step 3: Take your creation to the cash, get it weighed, and pay! The pay-by-oz. rate is $0.49 per oz. To put that into perspective, my creation up top was a little over $4, so it’s very average and reasonable for frozen yogurt desserts and it’s filling. You get what you pay for and my best friend and I weren’t fazed in the least by our totals. The cups are deep, so you can fill this baby up real high! Obviously since it’s a pay-by-oz. system the lighter items will cost less (like shredded coconut, for example) and the heavier items will tip the scales more (like sticking a gazillion chocolate bar pieces!).
Use your judgment, but don’t skimp for the sake of it. The whole point of Menchie’s is fun and it’s meant to be accessible and customizable for everyone. There are even stickers on the froyo machines telling you which ones are kosher, non-fat, low sugar, etc. so that you can make informed choices based on your diet. We saw parents with their kids here, high schoolers, 20-somethings like us, the whole shebang. My best friend and I had a lot of fun our first time here and I can’t wait to go back and make another yummy creation! I’m thinking of a cookies and cream one, a chocolate one, a green apple and fruity one…the possibilities are endless. I don’t even think two lifetimes are enough to exhaust all the options here.
*****
Menchie’s Frozen Yogurt is located at 511 Bloor St. West, on the south side of Bloor between Spadina Ave. and Bathurst St. It is at the corner of Bloor and Borden St.
Scrapbooking materials used: to be added!
Ate by Ate 
…. what are the odds I can get them to open a store near me in time for my birthday next week, so I can devour frozen yogurt instead of cake?! 😉 It looks soooo delicious, omg!
When I was little I used to INSIST on going to this particular restaurant, because they had an ice cream station. Even now, I reminisce about it and often comment how I want to go to one (they closed all the ones in my state, booo!), because I loved the experience of doing it myself. Mind you, this was a smattering of toppings to pick from and the ever eternal chocolate, vanilla, or twist for options. HA! What a joke… 😉 I’d prefer to go to your place and eat frozen yogurt til I bust, lol!
I KNEW you’d love this the same way you love the idea of Freshii! 😀 You hit it spot on, it’s the fun and experience of doing it yourself that keeps you coming back for more. At the Frankie Tomatto’s all you can eat buffet I recently blogged about, they put in a new section beside the icecream station where you pull levers to give your icecream showers of sprinkles and things. Everyone was having a field day with them, haha!
And oh my gosh, can you imagine how awesome it would be if you, me, and Jen got to spend your birthday doing this?!
AHHHH I just checked the website – there is one Coming Soon here! OMG. I am soooooo going to have to go! I literally feel like jumping up and down right now, LOL!!
And yes, I am in love with it, just like Freshii! 😉
That would be amazing. SERIOUSLY. Ah, I wish with all my heart we could do that…. it would be so much fun! ❤
oooh oooh oooh….. I also noticed there’s already one in Annapolis, Maryland. I’m trying reallllllllllly hard to get there the end of this month, so if I do, I’m going to have to give that one a go if it’s nearby!!
Oh my goodness, if you do go you must take pictures!! It’ll be so cute to see comparisons! I love seeing the differences (if there are any) between places based on the location. And yes, a birthday get-together is on my “must do in my lifetime” list 😀 ❤
Favorite post ever!!! Creamsicle fro yo??? I die. I also love how relatively cheap you can get out on this. I felt like I was loading up on my cup, but was leaving with a $4-$5 cup. Bargain!!
I see on Menchie’s website that they have a coming soon to Chicago. Please come sooner!!
Awww, I’m so happy you like the post 😀 And that’s awesome! I hope it’ll be relatively close to you or at least accessible, then you can try it out and we can all share pics, hee. And I agree, totally within my budget when I feel like a dessert, love it! I follow them on twitter and I heard that they added some flavours to the already huge list. I saw something about red velvet, eeee! Must go back and check it out sometime.
I’ve never had frozen yoghurt before! It’s not a huge thing here. This looks like sooo so soooo much fun!
Aww Breige, I’m sure you’d love it! I love it just because it’s a dessert that isn’t too sweet and even though I have a big sweet tooth, sometimes it really good to have something subtler. And frozen yogurt to me is just fun. So this is fun ON TOP of fun, haha 😀
Pingback: Summer Ice Cream by the Waterfront – Toasted Coconut Island Ice Cream at Chocolates & Creams « Ate by Ate