Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Frozen yogurt, cupcakes, subs headed to East Blvd.

In addition to a Jersey Mike's Subs shop, the former Blockbuster on East Blvd. will also house a Smallcakes Cupcakery and Freshberry Frozen Yogurt Cafe.

The stores plan to open in the first week of June. "“We are still in the development stages but, Jersey Mike’s will be half of the developed space and Smallcakes and FreshBerry will share the rest of the space,” said Rodger Blake, co-owner, in a statement.

Smallcakes is an upscale cupcake shop with 15 signature cupcakes, baked fresh daily, and was featured on the Food Network show "Cupcake Wars." The store in Charlotte will be the chain's 22nd location.

Freshberry will join the ever-growing ranks of Charlotte's frozen yogurt stores. Freshberry will compete against companies such as Yoforia, Tasty Yo, Pinkberry, TCBY, and the Frozen Isle. On East Blvd., Freshberry will be opening almost across the street from Menchie's, a frozen yogurt franchise that just opened last year.

The catalyst for all this is the closing of Blockbuster, which has been at that corner for a decade and a half. As the video/DVD rental business fell apart under an onslaught of Netflix, streaming video, Redbox and on-demand services, Blockbuster declared bankruptcy and was sold last year to Dish Network for $320 million.

Dish Network is closing a slew of under-performing stores, pushing a new video on-demand/mail order DVD service through Blockbuster, and planning to sell and service Dish Network products from the remaining Blockbuster locations.


View Larger Map

0 comments: