A new yogurt shop — sweetFrog Premium Frozen Yogurt — plans to open soon in a storefront in the Willow Bend Town Centre, at 22920 State Road 54, at Collier Parkway in Lutz.
The center’s anchor, Kmart, closed in mid-March. Representatives of Sears Holdings said the Kmart closing would cut company expenses overall and speed up its efforts to recast Kmart’s business model.
(Kathy Steele/Staff Photo)
No additional announcements on a prospective tenant to fill Kmart’s spot, as well as a handful of other vacant storefronts, are available yet, according to Courtney Bissett-Hayes of Bissett McGrath Properties.
The sweetFrog shop is expected to open in August next to South Beach Tanning, Bissett-Hayes said.
The franchise owner could not be reached for comment.
The sweetFrog brand began seven years ago in Richmond, Virginia, as a start-up business by South Korean immigrant Derek Cha and his wife, Annah, according to the yogurt shop’s website.
The company is operated on Christian principles, similar to the model of Chick-fil-A. The second part of its name —Frog —is an anagram for Fully Rely on God.
Company mascots are Scoop and Cookie. The shop is available for birthday parties and special events. A Leap Forward School program offers free frozen yogurt cards to schools as giveaways for students who are on the honor roll, have perfect attendance or are singled out for exceptional citizenship.
There is a sweetFrog location in Spring Hill.
Worldwide, the yogurt franchise has 350 locations. It has shops in 25 states across the country, and in the Dominican Republic, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, according to its website.
Published July 13, 2016
