MIDDLEBURY — The Ben Franklin store on Main Street could soon be home to a frozen yogurt franchise.
Andy Li, co-owner/partner of Ben Franklin, has applied for permission to install a “Yogurt City” within a 665-square-foot portion of the store.
Yogurt City bills itself as a “franchised and growing chain of self-serve healthy yogurt stores” with more than 60 locations located primarily on the East Coast.
The local Yogurt City would be in a walled-off spot “in the northwest corner of the front of the Ben Franklin,” reads a project summary on file at the Middlebury planning office.
The shop is to be managed by two or three workers and will include 10-12 seats. It will be open seven days per week, according to the application. A Yogurt City sign is to be hung perpendicular to the Ben Franklin building. The sign is to be 8 feet long by 2 feet wide and meets town ordinance standards, according to Middlebury Zoning Administrator Ted Dunakin.
A yogurt franchise is an allowable use in Middlebury’s central business district, Dunakin said. The Middlebury Development Review Board was slated to review the Yogurt City application on Monday, March 10.
Li said he became interested in a Yogurt City franchise after seeing the success of such stores in Williston and Rutland.
“They are doing well,” he said of Yogurt City. “People love it.”