Miami Student

Issue date: 11/6/09 Section: Community

B.T.O (By The Ounce) Self Serve is opening its sixth location Jan. 1 at 26 W. High St. Customers can fill up their own servings and choose from 12 flavors of frozen yogurt and any choice of toppings at 39 cents an ounce.

Twenty-six W. High St. in uptown Oxford has stood empty for three years. This will no longer be the case in January, when the new frozen yogurt shop, B.T.O. (By The Ounce) Self Serve Yogurt, will make its home in the newly renovated building.

Tom Girardot, project manager of Park Place Real Estate, said it's an "incredibly awesome feeling" to finally have the empty spaced filled.

The customer is the boss in the new frozen yogurt shop. A customer can choose from one of 12 flavors of frozen yogurt, which alternate every one to two weeks, how much frozen yogurt he or she wants, self-serve it from the available machines and then add any choice of toppings that includes everything from strawberries to Fruity Pebbles.

"Frozen yogurt is our primary product," owner Gordon Kaiser said.

B.T.O.'s frozen yogurt is a "probiotic product," Kaiser said, meaning that the shop offers yogurts that are "low in calories, low-fat, non-fat," and for diabetics, sugar-free frozen yogurt. Kaiser also said B.T.O. is experimenting with lactose-free frozen yogurt as an option for people who are lactose intolerant.

The "product and the environment" sets B.T.O. Self Serve Yogurt apart from all the other ice cream shops in town, Kaiser said.

What really sets B.T.O. apart from ordinary shops of its kind is its concept of selling frozen yogurt by the ounce. B.T.O. yogurt costs 39 cents per ounce. Kaiser said the shop is also working with MUBucks to add even more traffic to the store from Miami University students.

Oxford's location will be the sixth B.T.O. Self Serve to open, and the second to be located in Ohio. The other locations include four in Arizona and one as close as Greenville, Ohio.

"I've always liked the Oxford area," Kaiser said. "(The store is) well suited to a college campus."

Alan Kyger, economic development director for the city of Oxford, said the frozen yogurt shop will be "another alternative" to the other ice cream shops in Oxford.

"People are going to like (how it) is set up (and they're) going to like how it's done," Kyger said. As for competition in Oxford from other ice cream and frozen yogurt shops, Kaiser said there is not much overlap among products sold in the different stores.

"I don't see a lot of competition," Kaiser said. "(A place such as) Cold Stone is a very different product."

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