On a recent Monday, this writer was steeling herself to join the latest interminable line in the name of viral deliciousness. Not artisanal bagels, matcha or pain au raisin; this time, the target was tangy, creamy Greek frozen yogurt from the viral popup brand Mikono.
Since cofounders and best friends Nathalie Del Valle and Maya Matta started doing drops out of their River West apartment this spring, they have routinely sold out of their thick, protein-rich froyo topped with fruit sourced from a family farm in Miami.
Alas, I would come up empty once more.
One week after Mikono debuted a summer residency at Latina Sweat Project in Pilsen on July 13 to lines stretching down the block, Matta and Del Valle announced on Mikono’s social media that they were pausing operations. Following a few quiet weeks of suspense, they announced another South Side residency, starting on Aug. 18 at Vjosa Café & Events in Bridgeport, as the pair gears up for their first brick-and-mortar shop in Lincoln Park later this year.
That’s right. A staple of 2000s shopping mall culture, froyo is back — again — but it has undergone a revamp. What’s leading the charge in the “holistic” era of protein-maxxing is tangy, dense Greek frozen yogurt. Its rise owes in part to the global virality of brands like Madrid-based Myka, which recently brought its Greek froyo with goat kefir to New York and Miami. (Del Valle, who lived in Spain during college, took inspiration from chains like Myka. Hers promises to be the city’s first Latina-owned Greek frozen yogurt shop.)
Yet save for a handful of contemporary Mediterranean restaurants building cult followings on cheffy Greek froyos, the stuff remains elusive in Chicago, for now.
“There’s been so much more demand than we expected,” Del Valle told me in a June interview.
“We knew it would hit; we just thought it would take a lot more time to gain so much traction,” Matta added.
One could argue that frozen yogurt never really left us; rather through its ebbs and flows it has evolved in its style, formula and marketing-speak to suit our changing notions of treating ourselves. Does the latest iteration have what it takes to endure the rapid-fire trend cycle of FoodTok?
Trading diet for wellness
Froyo first made waves in the fitness-crazed, calorie-counting 1980s, promising a sweet treat without the guilt. As the first decade of the 2000s wound down and build-your-own quickserve restaurants exploded, chains like Red Mango, Berry Chill and Pinkberry ascended with self-serve froyo by the ounce buried under mounds of crumbled candy, fruit and sauce.
Interest abated again, partly as Chicago’s fervor for premium ice cream took hold. (See the subsequent proliferation of upmarket shops like Pretty Cool Ice Cream, Jeni’s Ice Creams, Van Leeuwen and the vegan Vaca’s Creamery.)
A few old-guard froyo chains endure — albeit with a smaller presence. Forever Yogurt, which opened in 2010 and swelled to nine locations within the first three years, is now down to three.
A few Fridays ago, I stood in the nearly empty, sparkly pink-tiled Bucktown location amid dozens of froyo taps, topping and sauce stations. The glut of choice (85 rotating flavors, 50 toppings) read out like a graveyard for every food trend since the internet has tracked them: cake batter, cookies n’ cream, pistachio gelato, and no sugar-added strawberry froyos; sour and sweet gummies, four flavors of boba pearls, cookie dough bites, brownie bites and Biscoff sauce.
As I forked over $10 for a small cup of Euro Tart topped with Heath bar dust, blueberries, almonds and Reese’s Pieces, the door opened to unleash three children under 10 who screamed with delight. The yogurt was tasty, sporting the sharper bite of artificial citric acid than the soft tang of lactic acid in yogurt.
Froyo’s latest ascent dovetails with diet culture’s shift toward the more holistic notion of “wellness,” which trades in marketing terms like “clean label” and “self care.” Greek yogurt, with its natural cultures and protein density twice that of regular yogurt, suits the increasingly sophisticated discourse favored by fitness influencers, who wield ever-growing cultural and economic power on social media. (“Macros,” referring to macronutrients — a.k.a. the protein, carbohydrates and fats that comprise total calories in food — unsurprisingly has its own hashtag.)
Del Valle thinks the decline of many 2010s froyo shops came when people started to realize “how much sugar is in it and that it’s not actually better for you,” she said. “The thing I didn’t like is I didn’t know what exactly was in it. I wasn’t sure if it was fitting into my macros, or how much protein was in it.”
Mikono isn’t the only shop riding a larger wave of froyo demand. Upmarket ice cream chain Van Leeuwen has been roadtesting froyo with a creamy Bulgarian yogurt base at a few New York City locations because of “incredible froyo demand.” It will roll it out in Chicago come 2027, a brand spokeswoman said in an email.
Restaurants lead the charge
But while we eagerly await the next crush of standalone froyo storefronts, a few savvy restaurants are happy to capitalize. Contemporary Greek restaurants such as Kouklas Greek Eatery in Niles and 10-year-old Ema in River North have noticed increased demand for their seasonal, scratch-made Greek froyos with cheffy toppings like pistachio sauce or olive oil and sea salt.
The housemade Greek froyo at Ema, the Mediterranean- and Californian-inspired restaurant from Lettuce Entertain You, has been a favorite since it opened in 2016, executive partner Marc Jacobs said. The group has since added it to the menu of sibling restaurant Aba.The Lettuce version starts with a frozen yogurt mix blended with Greek yogurt in Electro Freeze soft serve machines until it’s as thick as cement mix. The mixture is finished with a drizzle of olive oil and sea salt or seasonal sauces, like pistachio or passionfruit.
In 2025, Ema’s fast-casual offshoot Rotisserie Ema launched a summer promotion offering $1 froyo on Fridays from its walk-up counter. This year, it’s seen week-over-week growth all summer, setting a record on July 17 with more than 800 sold in four hours, Jacobs said. (It goes until Sept. 4.)
In the month of July alone, Kouklas, the contemporary Greek dinner restaurant from chefs Jimmy Bannos Jr. and Kevin Stack, sold 568 Greek frozen yogurts (both plain and strawberry), said managing partner Audrey Witte. Theirs, which has been on the menu since Kouklas opened in January, is mixed in a Carpigiani soft serve machine until velvety smooth, then finished with Greek olive oil and black volcanic sea salt or freeze-dried strawberries in the case of the strawberry flavor. After a July 9 Instagram reel (clocking 20,500 views and counting), the restaurant has noticed “people are making special trips just for dessert,” Witte said. “We’ve regularly had guests stop in between 9 and 9:45 p.m. just to try it before we close.”
On a mild Tuesday, I finally ended my Greek froyo drought with an order at Ema’s, finished with olive oil and salt. Snow white and uncommonly rich, it had a pleasant, lactic tang and hint of sweetness. I swirled in the fruity olive oil that had pooled at the bottom and thrilled at the occasional crunch of salt, which supercharged the mild acidity. This was no guilt-free treat or sweets-laden fauxgurt, but something far more sophisticated.
All the same, I got déjà vu standing on a street corner in River North, getting a froyo brain freeze while office workers breezed by me with their carryout lunches. Was it 2008 when I stood a few blocks away on State Street, sampling my first aggressively tart, fat-free spoonful of Berry Chill froyo?
The local chain was all the rage then, with its “real active cultures!” and toppings like mochi and mango. It would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection two years later. If history insists on repeating (again), give me the Greek stuff.