Familiar faces in a new place
The complaint of college students having no place to go to just hang out in Logan has been seemingly universal among the student body of Utah State University. It seems like every television show has always had that one certain place where everybody inevitably ended up on most days or nights. Think Central Perk from the show “Friends” or that restaurant from “Seinfeld.” The closest thing to such places in Logan have been a certain 24-hour Mexican eatery and a sit-down restaurant or two that are open only kind of late. Not to knock on any current places, but none of them seem to have much of a charm to them that makes you want to actually go and just hang out there. They’re more on the side of simply eating establishments, not hangouts.
In recent weeks, the lack of a local hangout seems to have been ousted in the form of a new frozen yogurt shop called Tummi Yummi’s. The business was opened by former Aggie basketball players David Pak, Cass Matheus and Nate Harris. Pak, who has spent the past five years living in Logan, said his main motivation behind opening Tummi Yummi’s was that he felt like Logan had no place for people to go and just hang out. A lounge in the restaurant, complete with cushioned seating all around, flat-screen televisions and games looks like it is the filler to the void of a local hangout.
“I knew I wanted to open up the lounge,” Pak said. “I just didn’t know what I wanted to sell on the side.”
Pak decided on frozen yogurt to be the primary culinary option available to accompany the store’s lounge. Inside, customers will find nine flavors of frozen yogurt to choose from, more than 35 different options of toppings for the frozen yogurt. They also serve coffee, sodas, cookies and chips. While the prices for the chips, sodas and cookies are set, the thing that sets Tummi Yummi’s apart from other ice cream and frozen yogurt establishments in town is that Tummi Yummi’s charges customers based on the weight of their finished product.
“You dictate what it is you want and how much you want to spend,” Pak said.
With a price of 37 cents per ounce for frozen yogurt and toppings, each customer can pile on as much of their favorite toppings as they please. And while only nine flavors of frozen yogurt are available at any given time, Pak said there are between 30 and 40 flavors of ice cream that can be switched out in place of any current flavor.
“It’s about demand,” Pak said of the changing of flavors. “If one’s not really selling then I’ll switch it out with something else.”
As far as the lounge goes, there might not be a more inviting place for the die-hard Aggie fans than Tummi Yummi’s. Aggie-blue couches line the outside of the room, while action photos from Utah State athletic events, framed jerseys from the store’s three founders and a giant replication of this season’s Aggie men’s basketball poster cover the walls throughout the entire store.
Pak said, “This community loves our university and athletics, but there’s no business in town that supports and completely reflects that.”
On top of providing a method of selling frozen yogurt that is currently unique to Cache Valley and a lounge that serves as a hangout for the community, Pak said he wants his store to catch on as the primary destination for people to watch away games for all of Utah State’s athletic events.
“I’m going to do the best I can to televise every away game for every sport,” Pak said. “If they’re not televised that day, I’ll get the game tape and show it the next day or some time that week.”
Pak also said he hopes to eventually gather a collection of old game film of Utah State games and show different games on the store’s TV’s throughout the day for what he called an “ESPN Classics” in an Aggie way.
If nothing else, the bathrooms alone are worth a visit.
–matt.sonn@aggiemail.usu.edu