Great Escape: Coastside Edition

Last week, Great Escape featured the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association's Passport event to get away for the day, enjoy some local scenery, and taste some of the region’s best wines.

This week, reprieve comes in the form of a frozen dessert, promising to soothe your soul and satiate your taste buds.

“Froz yog,” “fro-yo,” “frogurt” — whatever you call it, kids love it, and so do their parents.

Slightly more tart than ice cream and lower in fat (due to the use of milk instead of cream), frozen yogurt has the potential to make everyone happy because “it’s like ice cream, but a healthier choice so parents like it and the kids don’t know the difference,” says Rebecca Seeley-Kavaliku, owner of on Main Street in Half Moon Bay. “Let’s face it, anything sweet and creamy makes everybody happier.”

Seeley-Kavaliku’s parents ran a yogurt shop in the very same location as Nano’s Yogurt Shack 20 years ago.

“It was the craze then, and is still now, especially with the self-serve yogurt places, which seems to be a big trend these days,” said Seeley-Kavaliku.

Back in the 1980s, frozen yogurt shops took the United States by storm. Suddenly, it seemed like every street corner was home to a shop selling frozen yogurt with a variety of toppings. After dominating the frozen dessert industry for about 10 years, frozen yogurt was slowly overtaken by premium ice cream shops and gourmet coffeehouses.

But guess what? The frozen yogurt fad is back, and frozen yogurt franchise concepts are popping up everywhere, places like Yumi Yogurt, Yogurtouille and Happy Yogurt in San Mateo and Tuttimelon in Burlingame.

Still, Coastsiders don’t have to venture that far to enjoy the popular frozen dessert when they can have it at the locally owned business, Nano’s Yogurt Shack. Chose from a variety of flavors, including Georgia peach tart, yellow cake batter, vanilla, chocolate, and orangesicle. Take your pick of toppings like marshmallows, gummy bears, nuts, Reese peanut butter cups and butterscotch and chocolate sauce. Get it to go, or sit at the counter — traditional soda fountain style — and soothe your soul with some sweet and creamy goodness.