While other parts of the country are breaking out their new fall sweaters and snuggling up to pumpkin chai lattes in fuzzy mittens, our late-arrival summer is only just kicking into full swing here in LA. In honor of these last blazing days of summer, we present you with our current obsession and our absolute favorite way to beat the heat. Allow us to introduce you to Yoga-urt, the best soft serve frozen yogurt in town. It also happens to be organic, vegan, gluten-free, soy-free and uses no artificial ingredients of any kind. How can the creamiest, richest, smoothest, most delicious soft serve in existence be vegan, you ask? Come take a stroll with us…
Yoga-urt first popped up in Glendale’s adorably quaint Kenneth Village in 2015. We’re always huge fans of any tiny frozen-in-time hidden gem neighborhood tucked away right here inside our bustling city (hello, Montrose!), but Kenneth Village might be the sweetest and tiniest of them all. The one-block strip of Kenneth Road just west of Grandview is as Bedford Falls as we could ever hope to find in LA and well worth a trip out to wander. Dotted with little restaurants, a French patisserie and a cute on-trend clothing boutique, walking along Kenneth Village feels like taking a sudden unexpected vacation. And we all know there’s nothing better to do on vacation than enjoy a delicious, soul-satisfying ice cream cone while taking in the scenery.
This brings us to Yoga-urt at the heart of Kenneth Village—a happy haven of healthy yumminess where all are welcome, including your dogs, babies, dog babies or all of the above. Colorful hand-painted hearts cheerfully display affirmations like “abundance”, “serenity” and “bliss” as you enter, letting you know what joy awaits just on the other side of the door. Speaking of bliss, have you ever seen a grown man do a happy dance and sing to himself in his chair privately as his first response to taking a bite of ice cream? Have you witnessed multiple grown adults with histories of food allergies sob with awe, delight and eternal gratitude that delicious soft serve can now be a reality for them again? Like, actual real streaming tears? We have. Right here. When we say Yoga-urt brings joy, we mean it on the deepest level. It’s not something that can even be described. You have to just taste it to know it.
So what makes this place and this “yogurt” so special? We’ll let the experts speak for themselves a moment:
“Our flavors are made from scratch each day, starting with hand-squeezed almond milk with all organic and dairy-free ingredients, then blending in cashews and healthy probiotics. All of the Yoga-urt soft serve is unbelievably rich and creamy and contains four strains of live probiotics added for digestive and immune health. Yoga-urt offers over 25 nut-based handcrafted rotating flavors of organic, vegan, gluten-free, soy-free soft serve; a toppings bar with mostly organic and all vegan options; organic smoothies including healthy green and paleo options; kombucha floats; banana splits; shakes; pints to go and more.
For those who like their Yoga-urt in a cone, these too are handcrafted from scratch, vegan and gluten-free. And our cookies for our ice cream sammies and our pie crust for our pie slices are made from the leftover almond pulp/flour from our soft serve! We serve coffee from LA’s popular sustainable purveyor Groundwork and tea from The Art of Tea. Plus we are eco-friendly with all compostable paper goods!”
What started off as Siren Christina’s secret private obsession for treats on her way back from art class has now spread to the entire Sirens & Scoundrels pack, becoming a full-blown group addiction where meet-ups are regularly scheduled to taste the new flavors at each location as they roll out during the week. Our personal favorites are Ganesha’s Sweet Greens (naturally sweetened with no added sugar), Orange Dreamsicle, Cherry Amaretto, Tantric Tart and the classic Chocolate Bliss. But believe us, EVERY FLAVOR is incredible and will fill you with PURE DELIGHT!
PRO TIP: You can order side-by-sides of flavors in any size cup or cone, including a mini (they even have mini cones!!). If two flavors are swirling, it counts as one flavor. So if you order a side-by-side that includes a swirl, you’re actually getting three flavors of deliciousness to light up your taste buds and your heart.
This summer, Yoga-urt opened a second location in Echo Park on Sunset Blvd just West of Mohawk Bend—great news for all you East Siders with a vegan soft serve urge that needs to be filled. But how do you decide which store to visit? It’s not as simple as closest proximity. If you follow Yoga-urt on Instagram, you’ll discover that different flavors are rolled out between the two locations during the same week. So if Lavender Blossom is on your hit list and it’s only at Echo Park, you know which direction to head in. If Salted Caramel Zen is swirling with Coffee Karma in Glendale and that’s what is giving you life, then hoof it over to the base of the Verdugo Mountains to get your frozen joy fix on. If you do make it out to Kenneth Village (and you really should), take your happiness-in-a-cone up the street and enjoy the sprawling grounds of Brand Park and the gorgeous Brand Library, complete with a Japanese tea house, to really make you feel like you have traveled far far away—perhaps to a different time entirely—without ever leaving your hometown.
Enjoy these last smoldering days of summer! And we’ll see you soon with some FALL FUN updates for all your sweater weather dreams coming true!
Happy Eating!! xoxo, Sirens & Scoundrels
Yoga-urt info can be found: HERE.
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Words by Christina Huntington // Photography by Sarah Prikryl
Additional Photography by Gina Cholick
Cone Insert Photography via Yoga-urt Instagram
© 2019 Sirens and Scoundrels
Sirens & Scoundrels 