Grinnell community members looking for a place to relax with a bowl of frozen yogurt are now in luck: the aptly-named frozen yogurt shop The Fix opened at 819 Broad Street in June.
The Fix offers six kinds of frozen yogurt at a time and regularly changes what flavors they offer. Customers can choose more traditional flavors—such as chocolate and vanilla—or go for a refreshing watermelon sorbet or strawberry frozen yogurt. Owner Larry Thompson said that the most popular flavors include caramel pretzel sea salt, peanut butter and cake batter.
“Sometimes we bring in an orange sorbet that we pair with the vanilla,” Thompson said. “It tastes like an Orange Dream Bar.”
The Fix gets its yogurt from Honey Hill Farms and the quality of its product matches the taste of top frozen yogurt shops around the country. The yogurt is thick, rich and not overly-sweet, which allows for the full flavor of the all-natural ingredients to stand out. For instance, the peppermint frozen yogurt is cool and refreshing without leaving a fake, cloying taste on the tongue.
After deciding which flavors of yogurt they want, customers are able to load up their concoction with options from the plentiful self-service topping bar—which includes freshly cut kiwi, strawberry boba (which provides a tapioca-based burst of sweet flavor) and frosted animal crackers. There are also various tempting sauces: hot fudge, marshmallow fluff and a delectably sweet and savory homemade peanut butter sauce.
“The peanut butter sauce is one of our most popular sauces,” Thompson said. “We’ve had people ask us to just sell it, and if it wasn’t so much work to make we would consider doing that.”
When asked how the sauce is made, Thompson laughed and said “That’s a secret.” He did reveal that it was all natural and without preservatives. Regardless of how it’s made, the taste is undeniably good and a perfect complement to any yogurt that you may happen to choose.
Given its close proximity to campus, plentitude of tables, high ceilings and brick walls, The Fix is a cozy atmosphere to study in. There is also a full coffee bar with prices that beat Saints Rest’s—a dollar fifty for 20 ounces. On the inside of a large glass case plastered with posters advertising community events, there are rows of fresh cookies, baklava and cinnamon rolls for similarly low prices. The cinnamon rolls are made in-house and are caked with a layer of thick frosting. Like the muffins, which are made with yogurt, the cinnamon rolls are moist, chewy and entirely satisfying.
This is the second frozen yogurt venture that Thompson has undertaken. He decided to open up the first store, called Worth the Weight, in Newton.
“My daughter took us to a frozen yogurt place in Ankeny and we loved the place so we kept going back to Ankeny just to have yogurt,” Thompson said. “Then I just decided one day that it would be cool to own one. There wasn’t anything on this side of Iowa, so I quit my job at Pella Corp and pulled out my retirement and put it up in Newton.”
Thompson says that he moved the business from Newton to Grinnell because the Newton economy “isn’t that great.”
“Grinnell has a much closer community, there is a lot of stuff going on for the community here,” Thompson said.
Business is going well in Grinnell, and Thompson is looking into hiring someone to work at the shop on the weekends. In the near future, he says he is getting a waffle cone maker and bringing in birthday cake-flavored frozen yogurt.
Students who want to make the short walk to The Fix will find it open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from noon to 6 p.m. on Sundays.
