Pinkberry Success
SWEET SUCCESS
Pinkberry yogurts were an instant hit in LA and now they look set to spread across the nation.
From a tiny West Hollywood hole-inthe-wall to a pan-American culinary brand within two years. Young Lee and Shelly Hwang have become the dairy king and queen of LA.
Th e frozen yogurt and berry treat boasts tons of fans (A-list celebrities among them), who have an almost inconceivable passion for the stuff . Inconceivable, that is, until you sink a spoon into one of Pinkberry’s treats: the smooth, soft green tea flavor or plain frozen yogurt served with their fresh fruit topping—doubly delectable for being fat-free.
TASTING TRIUMPH
LEE’S TIPS FOR A NEW CATERING LAUNCH
- Think simple: get your basic product and its quality right.
- Don’t be afraid of doing something new, but make sure it’s right for the level of sophistication of the market you’re launching into.
- Minimize staff-training outlay and energy consumption.
But fat-free yogurts big in LA? It all sounds cynically masterminded to score big with the body-conscious, gourmet-loving West Coasters, doesn’t it? “Well, you’d think so, wouldn’t you?” says Young Lee, the architect and kickboxing enthusiast who’s one half of the Pinkberry brand, along with Hyekyung “Shelly”
Hwang, daughter of a factory owner in South Korea who came to America in 1992 for business school at USC. “But, the truth is, it all came about by chance.
Shelly came to me as an architecture client. She’d rented this tiny space in West Hollywood, just south of Santa Monica Boulevard. She was hoping to open a high tea shop in the English style: cucumber sandwiches, pretty cakes, but it was a small space—only 650 square feet. I thought it could work, but I persuaded her to get a liquor license too, so she could serve sherry.
We went ahead, I designed the shop, we were under construction, 70 percent done and then boom—the license was revoked.”
By this point the duo’s working relationship had blossomed into romance, so Young Lee joined Hwang in going back to the drawing board. “I’d been to Vienna seven years before,” continues Lee, “and I was struck by the range of ices there. Th e gelatos, or hard ice cream, like Häagen-Dazs, which need plenty of sugar and fat to taste good at low temperatures; then the soft er gelatos, served with a spatula; right up to the ’soft serves’ which can be more delicately flavored. Th is made me think a non-fat, non-sugared frozen yogurt product, served soft , would work well, and that Los Angelinos would love it.”
Lee, it seems, had a good nose for a sweet opportunity. Th e couple agreed to follow the notion of purity through to the store design and product range.
Lee streamlined the store, using Philippe Starck plastic furniture and maximized the handkerchiefsized space with reflective surfaces.
Only two flavors of yogurt, they decided, would be available: plain and green tea, with nothing else on sale, not even water—little waste, no complicated staff training.
In a modern consumer market, focused on variety, it was a big gamble— but one that paid off . By February 2005, only a month aft er opening, Pinkberry was already turning over a profit as healthy as its product. Th ese days, the little store on Huntley serves 1,300 to 1,600 customers a day.
Yet success doesn’t come without its problems. Pinkberry’s neighbors—in this sleepy, residential area of million-dollar bungalows—are plagued by bottlenecked traffic and yogurt fiends double-parking to get their fix. “Our customers commonly get $30 fines just to get their Pinkberry,” says Lee. “But the bottom line is that many of them don’t mind paying $35 for a Pinkberry!”
Th ere have also been issues with copycat brands. “Th ey’re stupid,” says Lee. “Th ey call themselves berry this and berry that and copy our logo—but they don’t have the product.” Hwang is more philosophical. “Th ere is a place across the street, but it doesn’t make me angry. When I think about it, I remember my past and I don’t want to discourage their dream.”
Hopefully, neighbor outrage and imitative competitors will be less of an issue at Pinkberry’s rash of new franchised outlets across LA (from Koreatown, to La Brea and Melrose and Studio City), or at the 30-plus planned outlets in New York (the first, on West 32nd, has just opened). It sounds like a scarily rapid expansion, but Hwang claims they have been careful in choosing locales. “We are targeting neighborhoods where people care about their health and body,” she says, “where people want to diet.”
Th e waistline-conscious certainly aren’t at a premium in the City of Angels. Among the slender celebs to have darkened Pinkberry’s doors, Leonardo di Caprio, Kate Hudson and Lindsay Lohan are regulars. Not that they’ll get special treatment. A few months into the opening, Hwang hired a guard to instruct the crowds where to park and control the flow of customers into the store. He’s also handy for cutting the line off at 10:45pm, 15 minutes before the yogurt shop closes, with no exceptions.
It remains to be seen whether New Yorkers will take to the West Coast snack-store sensation with similar relish. One thing’s for certain though, with an eye on the London market and tight leash on quality control, for this talented couple, sweet success is pretty much assured. www.pinkberry.com