by Debbie Gaylord

​This Spring a community favorite, Yofrodipity Café on CR 210 is celebrating four years in business!  In looking toward the future, owner Lynn Hutzel has decided to reinvent her concept from self-serve yogurt establishment into Yofrodipity Café, offering much more than just frozen yogurt. Grilled cheese sandwiches, espresso drinks, crepes and other desserts will expand the menu while a new décor with nautical blues, anchors and nets conjures up Long Island.
    You will often see Lynn working behind the counter at Yofrodipity Café.   She is the one with a friendly smile and strong Long Island accent who takes your order and wishes you a good day. As the owner, she understands customer service that goes beyond average.
    Lynn and her husband Edward moved to St. Johns from Huntington, New York on Long Island twelve years ago. It was where they grew up, spending summers going to the beach, clamming and enjoying life.  Over time Long Island became crowded and expensive and after hearing about St. Johns from a friend who had moved, the couple decided to sell their home and move to Florida. It was a big change but they have loved living here and bringing up their children, who at the time were only 13 and 9.    
    In 2013 Lynn came up with the idea of Yofrodipity, a place where families could come to make their own yogurt sundaes.  The name Yofrodipity was inspired by Lynn’s favorite film, Serendipity with Kate Beckensale and John Cusak. It’s a love story about two people whose paths cross at a chance encounter and then years later reunite in a serendipitous moment.
    In a kind of serendipity, it felt like owning her own restaurant was the perfect next step for Lynn who worked as the Food Service Manager at both Bartram Trail High and Cunningham Creek Elementary over the years (she is still at Cunningham today).  She always dreamed of opening her own place in the community and now that her kids were older she had the time to focus on it.  
    For the past four years Yofrodipity has happily been serving frozen yogurt but more recently Lynn began to expand the menu, introducing crepes and coffee.  Now another big change is in the works. While they will still serve frozen yogurt, they will add a variety of gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches, similar to paninis with fun names based on nostalgic places from Long Island. 
    Why Long Island? After hearing their thick Long Island accent, people are always asking her and Edward, “Where are you from?” So, Lynn decided to bring something of her roots into play in their new menu and the nautical décor and color scheme is also part of this shift.

by Debbie Gaylord
Photo by Mindy Kerry of Nature's Child Photography

​    It must be nice to be able to bring your pets to work.  That is a luxury enjoyed by Dr. Kathleen Deckard at Pet’s R Family.  In between seeing patients for exams or conducting surgeries the Doctor is greeted by her sweet menagerie of pets, including her own Shih tzus  Fitzie (Fitzgerald) and Izzy (isabelle) who come to the office most days to hang out.
    Pet’s R Family on CR 210 is a Veterinary hospital and pet day care center that is quickly becoming one of the most popular in town.  Veterinarian and Owner, Dr. Kathleen Deckard has a warm personality and her genuine love and caring of her animal patients and their owners shines through.  She greets patients with a kiss and their owners with a hug reflecting her motto to treat each animal as if it were her own and each person as if they were family. 
    She says that her love of animals was always part of her life and began with her Grandmother. “My real love was passed down from my grandmother who lived in the Pocono mountains in PA.  She fed all of the creatures in the woods including bears, deer, & squirrels in addition to her menagerie of dogs and cats.  It was an early dream of mine to make the care of people and their pets my lifelong career and ambition”.
    After receiving a degree in Veterinary Medicine at UF and working as a Vet at a local animal hospital for sixteen years while her children were younger, she decided to fulfill a lifelong dream of opening her own animal hospital. Her dream became reality in June 2015 after she and her husband Brad Deckard (Her greatest cheerleader) transformed the office suites behind Hurricanes off CR 210.  The couple designed the office with patient’s needs in mind.  Care was taken in the finest details, with spotless examining and surgical rooms, an orderly outdoor running area, large sunny windows with views, a private cat condo, and even a beautiful and comfortable room for saying goodbye to pets.