Memphis has gone mad for self-serve frozen yogurt, with both new franchises and locally owned stores competing for sweet-toothed customers’ dollars and loyalty.

Frozen yogurt giant TCBY expanded in the area earlier this year with new self-serve locations. Other companies getting in on the action include Yo!Gurt Nation, Yogurt Mountain and Nashville-based Sweet CeCe’s, whose Shelby County franchisee, McKay Smith, opened the first of his five area stores in East Memphis’s Laurelwood Shopping Center in late October.

“I never thought I’d be in the specialty food business, but I saw the business model and really liked it,” says Smith, who left a longtime career in the financial services industry to open the franchise. “Big stores (and) small stores… all seem to be having some reasonable success.”

A visit to Sweet CeCe’s in Franklin, Tenn. last winter prompted Smith’s decision to bring the fairly new Nashville-based chain to Memphis. He considered several brands, but Sweet CeCe’s won out. “I did a lot of research on the product itself, and I think we have a superior product quality,” he says.

Sweet CeCe’s colorful candy-store concept includes five-foot-tall clear toppings dispensers resembling giant tubes of candy. Six yogurt machines dispense 12 flavors, many of them nonfat. Customers choose from two dozen dry toppings or 20 cold bar toppings including fresh fruit, cookie dough and cheesecake bites.

The store design “is special,” he says. “It’s not like anything anyone has ever seen in this town.”

Allowing visitors to assemble their own delicious creations is also a major fun factor.

“Creating an experience is really what we want to do,” Smith says. “It’s become a neighborhood gathering place. Kids from different schools are meeting here, mothers are running into each other. We’ve got a great mix of a lot of different folks.”

In the past decade, Smith says, frozen yogurt has come a long way in terms of taste. Also, yogurt “has health benefits like probiotics, which are good for the immune system and digestive tract,” he says. “It’s a fun, healthy treat for the kids that tastes fantastic, and they can satisfy their sweet tooth and parents don’t have to feel guilty.”

Meanwhile, Taylor Berger, co-owner of YoLo Frozen Yogurt’s two locations, says he was “blown away by the concept” when he visited a Yogurt Mountain store in Birmingham, Ala. in wintry February.

“The line was out the door,” he says. “I just couldn’t get it out of my mind.”

But instead of purchasing a franchise, Berger created his own local brand.

A lawyer who specialized in tax, probate and estate planning, Berger teamed up with seasoned entrepreneur Mike McCaskill, who for nearly 15 years has owned Best Loading, his own successful freight business.

“Mike started his company from nothing and built it up, so he’s got that entrepreneurial bug,” Berger says. “When I ran this idea by him back in March, something just clicked and he said, ‘I want to do this.’ ”

The pair’s first store, opened in Collierville’s Town Square in early August, and an East Memphis store followed soon after. And everything about the stores — from the interior design to the artwork on the walls to the fruit toppings —screams local.

From the get-go, Berger had envisioned what he wanted in terms of décor, from the tiles and fabrics to the retro-style banquette seating. He worked with Memphis interior designer Heather Averwater of architecture firm TRO Jung/Brannen to bring his vision to fruition.

The walls are adorned with works by local artists, and Robert Finkel, Berger’s friend, designed the YoLo logo.

“I wanted to focus on all the local good we have here, from the toppings (to) the art, and the end result of all that being to create a place that really had a community atmosphere, where people would want to gather and feel welcome to stay,” Berger says.

Soon after the store’s late-August opening, Berger realized he needed to quit his day job to ensure YoLo’s success. “Nobody cares like an owner,” he adds.

While he and McCaskill are equal partners, Berger manages the day-to-day operations at YoLo’s store in East Memphis’ Erin Way Shopping Center, which attracted 300 customers on its opening day.

“That’s all Facebook,” he says. The social media site is “just an awesome tool. I knew this was going to spread by word of mouth like wildfire, and it did.”

Also, he says, “East Memphis is the kind of place where everybody talks and everybody supports local business, especially when it’s done better than the competition.”

In fall, YoLo joined other homegrown eateries like Muddy’s Bake Shop, Thyme Bistro and River Oaks Grill when it earned certification from Project Green Fork for its sustainable business practices.

A major component in YoLo’s sustainability is its owners’ insistence on local goods. Its yogurt comes from Honey Hill Farms in Russellville Ark., while most of the toppings —including Makeda’s butter cookies, Delta Orchard pecans, Dinstuhl’s hot fudge sauce, Groovy Foods granola and Jones Orchard fruits — are also produced locally.

In addition, Berger purchases toppings from small, local wholesale bakeries including LadyBugg Bakery, Monkey Bread Bakery and LaChica Bakerita. YoLo also serves McCarter coffee, roasted in Millington.

Berger says his typical customers are “women of all ages. With them come their sons and husbands, but the driving force is the women.”

Midtown resident Stacey Greenberg, who writes the popular local “Dining with Monkeys” blog, says she is a YoLo devotee.

“I heard about YoLo on Facebook and was very excited to check it out,” she says. “Their frequent updates, plus their inclusion of local ingredients and participation in Project Green Fork, really built up momentum and had me ready to be the first person in the door once they opened.”

Berger recently purchased a trailer to be converted into a mobile unit for festivals and other events. He also plans to open stores in Jonesboro, Ark., Olive Branch, Miss., and possibly Jackson, Tenn. He says those stores will be run as partnerships with other owner-operators.

Berger also looks forward to opening a new store in his native Midtown Memphis, which he says will be in “an awesome location. We’re going to have a deck and integrate a front-of-house bakery. We’ll have the yogurt, plus a working bake shop and premium coffee. I’m really excited about that one.”