By Dani Tietz
dani@mahometnews.com
The world is changing. Yo You’s owners Alice and Matt Pommier know that.
One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is a need for community.
The Pommier’s vision of a community gathering space in 2017 centered around yogurt. Just three years later as the COVID-19 pandemic began to close businesses across the state, the Yo Yo’s model, self-serve yogurt with a buffet of toppings, took another hit.
“Matt and I have known for quite some time, since the beginning this whole thing happened back in March, that our business model of the self serve frozen yogurt is probably not going to happen again,” Alice said. “And it’s really sad.”
Through working with the Champaign-Urbana Public Health Department, the Pommiers learned that buffet style areas within restaurants may be a thing of the past.
“It’s going to be a very long time, if ever; they’re talking about salad bars, any kind of self-serve anything is probably going to be a thing of the past. If they do bring it back someday it will be literally years, maybe one maybe, two maybe, five years before we get this all under control and they finally decide it’s okay to start having people help themselves: touching utensils, having open food out not packaged without being served.”
In order to remain viable, the Pommiers knew they had to get creative. When the doors to Yo Yo’s reopen, the Pommiers will no longer serve self-serve frozen yogurt, but instead, coffee and tea.
“One of the things that I love about Yo Yo’s, and why we started this is the community,” Alice said. “It’s the people. It’s getting people together, having a gathering place, not only for kids to go but families to go.
“That’s really what we did it for. We didn’t do it for the ice cream, we didn’t really do it for the candy; we did it for the kids, we did it for just a place for somebody to to meet, have fun, we did it for the laughter.”
After uncertainty, the excitement of the space is back for the Pommier’s, who plan to open Yo Yo’s Coffee and Tea within the next few months.
During the site build, Matt was insistent on putting in a drive-thru window, which will serve a coffee and tea establishment well. The Pommier’s, who also own Mahomet Landscapes, know that diversification of business is vital.
Never in their wildest dreams would they have guessed that a pandemic would turn the world upside down, but preparing for the unknown, a change of business or resell of the property has set the Pommiers us for transition.
“Whether we were going to be a yogurt shop for 50 years, or whether we weren’t, that’s why we put the drive-thru in when we never had any intention of using the drive thru,” Alice said. “Now, it’s going to be what’s going to save us. And we’re really thankful that we put it in.”
They are also grateful that they installed retractable doors as part of Yo Yo’s facade.
“With the new laws, you can seat inside if you have 50-percent of your space open,” Alice said. “We could open all these doors and completely seat inside, which would be great. And maybe we’ll get a chance to do that later in the summer.”
Equipped with hi-speed internet connections, the Pommiers also envision Yo Yo’s becoming a gathering place for meetings and work during the winter months.
Alice said that Yo Yo’s will continue to serve bottled sodas and may have a yogurt machine behind the counter. Blended yogurt with toppings was supposed to be the summer 2020 attraction.
The uncertainty of how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect restaurants long-term is still to be seen. The Pommiers know that it could be a year or two before things settle.
But, being able to make adjustments while keeping their hearts on community is something that the Pommiers are committed to.
“We still have the community, we still have the people,” Alice said. “And we think that they’re going to be really receptive to this.”
