Founded in South Florida, donut-and-ice-cream brand Yonutz has been a smash hit with its “SMASHED” donuts and ice cream combinations, winning several years of Dessert Wars and expanding beyond its home in the Sunshine State.
“I was kind of the guinea pig for franchising,” Brock Howard, the star franchisee behind Las Vegas’s (and many other cities’) Yonutz locations, told What Now Monday.
Howard opened the first two Yonutz shops outside Florida and met with startling success. He’s been growing the brand nationwide ever since.
“It just blew up. It was just the two stores for about a year, and since this last fall we have 6 more that just opened up around the nation,” Howard said. “We’ll probably have about 24-25 by the end of the year, and probably double that in the next few years.”
So what is a “SMASHED” donut and ice cream dessert? The Yonutz website offers step-by-step instructions:
- Slice It (i.e. the donut)
- Fill It (with the ice cream of your choice)
- Smash It (using a press)
- Top It (with a wide variety of toppings)
- Eat It
Popular SMASH donut varieties include the Biscoff Cookie Butter SMASH Donut (Vanilla Ice Cream, Cookie Butter and Biscoff Cookies topped with Salted Caramel and Biscoff Cookie Crumble). If you’re feeling a like a milkshake, you can order a SMASH Milkshake, like the Strawberry Shortcake, which Howard says is Las Vegas’s most popular donut/milkshake flavor profile.
The valley’s next two locations will open this summer, at 6425 S Durango Dr Ste D3 in Spring Valley and at 334 W Lake Mead Pkwy Ste 100 in Henderson.
