Self-serve yogurt bar Tutti Frutti opens at Prairie Hills Mall

• Jonathan Hilton

Press Photo by Katherine Grandstrand Jonathan Hilton gets a sample of frozen yogurt from his aunt, Kayla Messall, at Tutti Frutti’s grand opening Feb. 23 at Prairie Hills Mall in Dickinson. Messall and her husband, Brett, along with Jonathan’s grandmother, Vernie Hilton, were the third, fourth and fifth people in line that day and each won free yogurt once a month for a year. Jonathan’s mother was sixth in line.

Talk about it

While Steve Heidrich was trying to save his lumber yard from flooding in Minot in 2011, his wife was babysitting their 4-year-old grandson in Pittsburgh where their daughter was finishing up school. The month-long babysitting stint often included trips to a neighborhood frozen yogurt shop.

Their grandson requested frozen yogurt in Minot when he came to visit them, and Heidrich’s wife agreed.

“So she called me up and I was actually driving a truck, diking my business and she said, ‘Hey, you need to look into this business venture.’ … I started checking and found that I liked Tutti Frutti the best and we decided to go with that,” he said. “Grandkids — they’re not so dumb sometimes if you listen to them.”

He opened his first Tutti Frutti Frozen Yogurt shop in Minot in December 2011. Since then he has opened a second store in Minot in May 2012, one in Jamestown in December 2012 and the latest addition at the Prairie Hills Mall in Dickinson opened Feb. 23.

He chose Dickinson because it was a larger, growing city.

Tutti Frutti has four different types of self-serve desserts, cream-based and tart-based frozen yogurt — both dairy — soy-based frozen yogurt and sorbets — which are dairy-free, Manager Jeff Bailey said.

“The tart is going to kind of make you pucker a little bit,” he said. “It’s going to be more of a citrusy and more of our fruit flavors.”

Heidrich said his favorite flavor is the soy-based peanut butter, even though he wasn’t sure about soy-based yogurt at first.

“It’s just soy milk,” he said. “It’s actually a better product.”

Proceeds from the sale of soy-based Tutti Frutti flavors are donated to the Nutrition and Education International project, a program that helps Afghan farmers grow soybeans.

There are all sorts of candy, including a Japanese rice cake called mochi, which looks like a gummy and has the texture of marshmallow, and fresh fruit to top the yogurt off with, Bailey said.

The yogurt is made fresh daily, Heidrich said.

The flavor line-up also changes, Bailey said. There are 60 to 80 flavors of Tutti Frutti yogurt.

“We try to rotate through our flavor calendar every month,” he said. The goal is to have each flavor featured at least once each month.

There is space for 12 individual flavors that are paired together, creating six additional swirl flavors.

To find out what flavors are available visit the location’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/pages/Dickinson-Tutti-Frutti.

“That’s kind of a neat aspect of our business,” he said.

Today there is a special kid’s cup event going on from open until 7 p.m., Bailey said. Children ages 12 and under can get a special cup that they can fill up once with as much yogurt and toppings as they like for $1.49.

Tutti Frutti is located at the north end of the Prairie Hills Mall near Kmart. It opens daily at 11 a.m., closing at 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and at 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

It will deliver large orders called in advance, Bailey said.

Visit www.tfyogurt.com to find out more about the flavors and the Nutrition and Education International program.

Tags: dickinson tutti fruitti, frozen yogurt, news, business