Yolavie

I usually don’t give most establishments under 3 stars but I’m sorry, this place just doesn’t do it for me AT ALL. There are so many good froyo places around town and this place located in PRIME foot traffic is highly mediocre and failing this spot of real estate.
Maybe I caught them on a bad day as this is always possible, who knows, but my yogurt tasted borderline foul. It was not fresh and sort of acidic maybe… I can’t quite put my finger on it but I’ve never had a «bleh» reaction to a simple and fun frozen yogurt treat. The toppings also weren’t as extensive as they could be (where is my Nutella? Snickers?). Lastly, the place seemed slightly sterile and lacked personality. I mean yeah, let’s be honest, it is in the middle of a massive shopping center with all global retail companies and not on a downtown street surrounded by other hipster establishments that might have more character… but come on, at least make the yogurt taste decent!

I was really excited to try this frozen yogurt place because I love a good self-​serve fro-​yo place. Many of the flavors were appealing (peanut butter, cake batter, lemon, mango, thin mint, cookies and cream, etc) but an employee must assist you in order to try samples (remove one star!). Normally this bothers me only a little bit, but the only employee in the store was on a personal call when we entered and just ignored us as we looked at the flavors. Eventually we had to ask her to get us some samples (they keep the sample cups behind the counter). Well, she got us each two different samples then proceeded to get back on the phone and ignore us. So we took it upon ourselves to refill our own sample cups (taking off another star for the poor service).
The frozen yogurt itself was delicious (I had my usual… cake batter with rainbow sprinkles and mini gummy bears) and my friends and I enjoyed sitting out on the patio eating our fro-​yo and people watching. What I liked about this place and what differentiates it a bit from other fro-​yo places is the fact that they list the calories per ounce for each flavor. Although they had enough variety in their toppings to please different tastes, they had fewer choices than some other stores.
Although the product itself was good, I will not be back because I much prefer Menchies… they allow you to get your own samples and their employees are always polite and attentive!!!

Typical frozen yogurt in the south point mall. It’s not very busy but it could be the time of day. It’s was super hot nearing happy hour. The froyo was the same multi– selection by weight with plenty of topping options. The price is a little higher than the other local places. The only downer really was the limited seating inside (poor use of space) and the terrible service. First, the lady behind the counter had disappeared to the back and it was a long wait for her to return. When she did show up she looked disgusted to be there and was cradling a phone in her neck, yapping to someone one the line while ringing me up. She was obviously on a personal call and seemed to hate being at work. I guess it was more important to continue on the phone with her friend than worry about the fact that she was at work to do a job. With so many froyo places to chose from I was surprised to see how little this one cared about service. This place is probably just relying on its real estate and convenience so they don’t worry about retaining customers.

Living The Yogurt Life
Visit: October 17
The other afternoon I was doing a little shopping at South Point Mall and I started to feel hungry. Snack time! Well, I always carry a healthy snack in my purse so I was good to go but I walked by YoLaVie and I forgot all about the little bag of almonds I had packed in my purse. Bye, bye almonds and hello self-​serve frozen yogurt bar! The bar is located in the outside, open air strip not far from the movie theater.
There were 16 different frozen yogurt flavors lined up along the wall including nonfat, lowfat, premium, and nonfat/​no-​sugar added varieties. You are welcome to try the yogurts but the employee dispensed the yogurt in a little cup for you. The employee was nice but she didn’t encourage tasting like at some other froyo places I’ve visited where they enthusiastically promote tasting. I tried the nonfat NY Cheesecake and the premium Peanut Butter. Both flavors had a very smooth and creamy consistency. The Peanut Butter is marked premium flavor denoting it contains fat (4.5 g of fat per serving) giving the this yogurt a luscious richness. The peanut butter frozen yogurt is definitely one you could enjoy naked, without any toppings. The cheesecake flavor had a subtle tartness reminiscent of cheesecake made with sour cream. To me, vanilla is one of the best foundation for frozen yogurt treats and I don’t do sugar substitutes. So I was happy to find YoLaVie offered vanilla WITH sugar, the Alpine Vanilla, which had the extra bonus of being fat free.
There were 2 cup sizes… big and bigger… such a marketing ploy but what can you do. There was a smallish cooler bar with a few fresh fruits, fruit flavored ‘balls’ (I’m not sure what they are and I didn’t try them), cheesecake squares, and brownie bites. On the counter top there was another selection of goodies including crumbled candy bars and cookies and nuts PLUS hot fudge and other tempting sauces like Ghiradelli caramel. I tried a brownie bite and I wanted to spit it out. Why? Well, the brownie was icky gooey, just a little square oily blob without any flavor. In the future, I’m not going to add brownie to my yogurt creations when I visit YoLaVie. I love hot fudge and I have to say that the hot fudge at YoLaVie was the best I’ve tasted at any froyo place. This hot fudge rocked… really fudgey, super chocolately, rich, and thick. The strawberries were fresh and sweet. One thing that’s cool about frozen yogurt bars is you can be your own chef and make a treat with the level of healthy up to you.