LinkedIn·Monday, 17 August 2026·9d ago

Gen Z's replacement for the pub might be a froyo bar. And it just landed in Europe. ❌🍻✅🍨 Yo-Chi Frozen Yogurt, Australia's cult…

Martin Vander Ghinste

Co-founder Feedelity | AI-native Guest Feedback Management for QSR 🍔🍴🚀

Gen Z's replacement for the pub might be a froyo bar. And it just landed in Europe. ❌🍻✅🍨 Yo-Chi Frozen Yogurt, Australia's cult self-serve froyo brand, opens its first European site in Notting Hill this week. 2,000 sq ft (186 sq m). Two floors. Seats for 120. A DJ booth and a strawberry disco ball. 🪩🕺 For a product you pay for by weight. While half the industry is shrinking dining rooms and chasing delivery, Yo-Chi is building bigger ones. Because it isn't really selling dessert. In Australia it grew from 4 to 75+ venues in six years by becoming the default evening hangout for a generation that drinks less. Here's what strikes me: there's no counter interaction in self-serve. No waiter to tell the vibe is off. Guests vote with dwell time and return visits. You have to go read the signals, because nobody hands them to you at the till. European operators are still fighting over lunch. The 9pm occasion, the one the pub is slowly losing, is wide open. Who in Europe is actually competing for it?