Scoop: Sadie, Middletown Yogurt Lady

She's just shy of three years old, but by mid-January, Sadie McMullin could have her own frozen yogurt shop.

Sadie's Self-Serve Frozen Yogurt Lounge will be more than just a way for the toddler to start a college fund. It will also be the latest place where aficionados of the lowfat treat can swivel and swirl as many frozen yogurt flavors as they can get into a bowl.

To top it off, Sadie's customers can customize their desserts by mixing and matching fruit, granola, coconut, candies, caramel, chocolate fudge, whipped cream and any combinaton of more than 50 toppings.

With francised self-serve yogurt stores quickly scooping up storefronts in highway shopping centers and malls throughout New Jersey, Sadie's parents, Brian and Michelle McMullin, are eager to show how their version of the frozen treat isn't just another flavor of the week.

"This is yogurt for a new generation," Brian McMullin said. "Many of these self-serve shops are owned by big businesses or even law firms. Ours is a family-owned business."

McMullin is aiming to open Sadie's, which will seat about 50 patrons in a 2,000-square-foot site, in mid-January inside Middletown's Union Square strip mall.

Sadie's will be located in the Rt. 35 center's eastern wing between the House of Chong and Cache Hair and Nails.

But unlike those other self-serve frozen yogurt shops, and ice cream shops in general, the McMullins, currently owners of Sea Bright's Gracie and the Dudes ice cream parlor, plan to bring healthy, all-natural treats to the public in an entertaining and fun way.

Like the storefront operation on the seaside community's Ocean Avenue, all of the frozen yogurt will be handmade on site as will many of the toppings, Brian McMullin said.

"With Sadie's, we're going to do for frozen yogurt what Gracie and The Dudes' success did for ice cream,"  he added. "We're going to take the traditional frozen yogurt store up a level. Our all-natural frozen yogurt will be 100 percent organic. We'll use natural hot fudge and caramel. All of our frozen yogurt and toppings will be homemade. We're also going to have more than 50 toppings including lots of fresh fruit and granola."

The fresh, homemade and health-conscious approach will give parents an alternative to ice cream, frozen yogurt, and other desserts filled with artificial colors and flavoring and high fructose corn syrup, said McMullin, a father of four young children.

Sadie's will represent the youngest McMullin's entry into the family business. Her older siblings, Gracie, 9, Brian, 7, and Will, 4, are the namesakes of Gracie and the Dudes, which opened in 2009, McMullin explained.

Regular customers to the Sea Bright shop, who come from as far away as Short Hills in the summer, have asked how the family would include Sadie in the business, he noted.

"We didn't want her to feel left out," McMullin said. "So we decided to give Sadie her own shop named for her."

That has caused a bit of sibling rivalry at home, the 17-year-veteran of the ice cream business admits.

"Gracie and my sons are a bit jealous," McMullin said.

Gracie and the boys need not fret, however, as Sadie's operation will be based on the business model that the McMullins used for their first shop. A dash of the Starbucks model will be mixed in for the adults, McMullin said.

Unlike self-service frozen yogurt shops that sport brightly colored Formica tabletops and hassocks for seating, Sadie's color scheme will be more subdued.

"We'll have a nice little coffee bar for the moms," McMullin said. "We're going with leather and granite and comfortable seating with backs. If you want to stay for two hours, you can."

Sadie's will offer WiFi connections and patrons can relax in front of two big-screen televisions, he continued.

"We'll tailor our store to the family crowd," McMullin said.

Six or seven staple flavors, including vanilla, chocolate or strawberry, will be on each day's menu along with rotating flavors of the day. Customers can pull down on individual handles on various yogurt machines placed alongside a wall.

"There will be 18 flavors every day, all homemade," McMullin said.

Patrons will be charged by the ounce for the quantity of yogurt and toppings they create as is the practice in other self-serve shops.

Sadie's will be in Middletown for the long haul despite Union Square's checkered history with storefront businesses and eateries coming and going, said McMullin, who owned the Dairy Queen francise in Chapel Hill Shopping Plaza from 1994 to 2005.

"As long as you have a good product, people will come to you. We have a lot of experience in this business," McMullin said. "In Chapel Hill, we had better numbers [profits] than A&P or anyone else there. It's not about the [shopping] center."

After selling the Dairy Queen, the McMullins operated a Rita's Water Ice franchise at Route 36 and Avenue D in Atlantic Highlands from 1998 to 2008.

The Oceanport couple still owns that property where a Ralph's Water Ice franchise is now operating, McMullin said.

Even if the self-serve yogurt bubble bursts, McMullin predicts Sadie's will still be around.

"When the coolness runs out, we'll still be here," he said. "It's about building a relationship with your customers."

Built on the site of the former Jackpot Golf, Union Square originally housed Redheads, a restaurant and bar. Redheads closed in 2004, and was succeeded by another restaurant and bar known as the Midtown.

Now vacant, that space, at the center's far right corner last housed a Japanese steakhouse. Today, Five Guys Burgers and Fries, New York Bagel, and a dance studio are now operating inside Union Square.