Yola, Laura and David Smith's Fresh Yogurt on Connecticut Avenue in South Dupont Circle - Closed

[goodeats]

I came across this place reading Thrillist DC or Daily Candy and thought it was a great idea. However, being in the Dupont area, it's not so accessible (I've been wanting to go to Filter Coffee for oh, about 6mos now too).

Has anyone been? It seems like a good concept: build your own parfait, oatmeal and smoothies with some coffee and tea available. Prices seem reasonable too to what you would buy at Starbucks and WF.

Yola

1323 Connecticut Ave., NW,

Washington, D.C. 20036

[DonRocks]

Sadly, Yola (see my review here) closed on September 28th. It is the first restaurant in South Dupont ever to be retired in Italic. This was the best yogurt shop in the area.

[Tweaked]

City Paper article on the closing

[DaveO]

Ouch! Such a friendly quality place going down. I read the City Paper article. Oh those comments by readers at the end were depressing.

I thought I recognized the father's name. Didn't know him but I used to know some of his peers pretty well in the RE business. Some of his peers have as much long term experience and smarts as any people in commercial RE in the region.

What a lesson. The RE people know the $ and cents of RE and retail real estate but they don't know the insides of what makes a restaurant /f&b place work. Ultimately only the owners really get to know it....and know it well...after seeing the daily and weekly revenues and all those danged expenses.

Always sad when someone's passion, brilliant idea, and quality product gets screwed by the hard reality of $$ and cents.

[Josh Radigan]

In some ways the story was uplifting simply because it wasn't the typical doom and gloom of some secret behind closed doors issue. Like inter squabling between owners, profits going up someones nose, bad product whether it be service or food. It was simply about money, not having enough to start which is a big problem with small business', and just not getting accustomed to the daily grind of everyday operations. I had the pleasure of working with Laura this past summer at Washington Golf, she was our pool manager and did a great job. Great personality, great attitude.

As for the comments at the end, people will make snarky second hand comments because they can, who cares. Thats the beauty of the internet, your face doesn't need to be in the place. Just a name.