A New Taste in Town: SweetFrog Frozen Yogurt

Ellicott City's dessert scene just got a little cooler and a little sweeter with the addition of sweetFrog, in the St. Johns Plaza Shopping Center along the Baltimore National Pike.

Boasting more than 20 flavors of frozen yogurt and 50 toppings, this self-service dessert shop is hoping to become a local favorite. Since the first Maryland location opened in Catonsville, sweetFrog has popped up in four more locations throughout the state and is now calling Ellicott City home.

According to the company website, the sweetFrog mission not only includes bettering your day with sweetness, but also bettering the local communities with charitable donations and "celebrity" appearances by their froggy mascots.

Patch spoke to Philip Pantana Jr., marketing coordinator for sweetFrog, and asked him about what makes sweetFrog a great addition to Ellicott City:

Philip, how did sweetFrog decide to come to Ellicott City?

The first sweetFrog opened in 2009 in Virginia and was very successful. By the end of this year there will be about 130 sweetFrogs open, and by the end of spring there will be over 200 stores open. We are currently the third of fourth largest self-service frozen yogurt brand in the United States.

Ellicott City has competition for you in Yogiberry and Tutti Frutti, so what makes sweetFrog special?

Some of these other brands, including Tutti Frutti, are using a powder-based product. So they're mixing milk, water, powder and gelatin to make their yogurt. At sweetFrog, the majority of our yogurt is a true-yogurt based product, so you have a health benefit, and our yogurts tend to be creamier and sweeter.

What does the experience of a self-service frozen yogurt place provide for customers?

The self-service model puts the customer in control. They get to decide what they want. The other piece to that is the options. TCBY, for example, only has two machines, which means you only have four flavors at any given time. In the self-service model, you have anywhere between four and 10 machines, typically, so you can essentially quadruple the number of flavor options. In addition, we have 50 toppings in Ellicott City. Options are what customers are all about.

You had a soft opening three weeks ago, what can Ellicott City residents expect to see in the near future?

We're all about partnering with the community. We want community engagement, we want sweetFrog to be a household brand. Kids just absolutely adore our frog characters, so we want to partner with every school, every church and every business to help the community financially.