Published Aug. 9, 2026at6:00am
If 2026 has been a summer of nostalgia, then its sweetest form might be a cup of tart, olive oil-topped frozen yogurt. A decade after the self-serve boom of the late 2000s and early 2010s, froyo is once again drawing lines, from New York City’s West Village to San Francisco’s Mission. This time, however, the toppings are grown up: flaky sea salt, wildflower honey, and matcha.
At Souvla (opens in new tab), the fast-casual Greek restaurant with six Bay Area locations, frozen yogurt sales are up 20% from last year — with a 30% increase at the Hayes Valley and Dogpatch locations. Foodhall (opens in new tab), a gourmet grocery, has seen froyo sales double this year. Local institution Easy Breezy (opens in new tab) also reports sales up around 20% since last summer.
But this moment is no candy-topped, build-your-own phenomenon; the yogurt is tangier, and the toppings reflect a craving for a snack that is sweet but elegant. Local business owners can’t definitively say why swirls of mochi-topped froyo are trending so hard, but they have their theories: Health-conscious diners looking to protein-max dessert, an unusually warm San Francisco summer, and a fresh crop of residents discovering popular local restaurants.
Susan Linton founded the International Frozen Yogurt Association (opens in new tab) in 2013. She explained that the Pinkberry trend of that time started in South Korea. Now Greek- and Australian-style froyo are competing for attention. San Francisco isn’t seeing all of these variations yet, but the city’s young diners are flocking to the options they do have.