The "Lawn Guy Lander": Yofrodipity Gets a Makeover!

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.