Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt

Best frozen treats in town! Lots of variety and always something new.

I tried to decide on whether to rate Orange Leaf a three or a four. I settled on three. Why? Because in the end I think Sheridan’s or Custard’s Last Stand are tastier. The last time I was in OL, the chairs and tables seemed kind of beat up and were showing a lot of wear… kind of rundown. The décor was pretty spartan inside. The yogurt was good but not outstanding. My 4 year old likes this place because you can pick from all the pretty toppings at the bar and all the choices of base yogurt. But on the whole, it’s A-​OK but I can’t call myself a fan, nor would I really think it’s good enough to recommend to a friend, for instance. Sheridan’s is more delicious and right up the street. So a three it is. The concept is good but there is something missing that I can’t put my finger on. Fairly pricey unless you watch yourself… price is by weight and it adds up quickly.

I liked this place when it first opened. But It’s starting to go downhill. The choices are very few, and after your toppings your order will be about 7 $. That’s a lot for I tiny thing of ice cream. I’d rather go to sheridans and get a concrete.
The taste of the yogurt is good. Just not worth the $$

I was very turned off by this Orange Leaf location.
They have 14 flavor choices. I like to sample all the flavors before making a decision.
The coffee tasted like the pistachio. The pistachio tasted like the cookies and crème. The cookies and crème tasted like the Cheesecake… and so on…
I picked the 2 I thought had the most flavor: Peanut Butter and Coconut. But paired together in a cup and tasted side by side, they still tasted the same.
I will praise them for their topping choices. I was impressed by their options including: Angel Food cake bites, Sweedish Fish, Jelly Belly jellybeans, and gummy worms.
When we stepped up to the scale to pay, the girl behind the counter was in the middle of chopping up fruit which you could watch her do while topping your yogurt. She proceeded to process our order… with a glove on one hand which she kept behind her back, and she took our money one-​handed with her free hand. After we had paid, she then proceeded to go back to cutting the fruit with the same hands… no washing them, no new glove…
This location is just the same as all the others: young employees, brightly colored, lilly pad type seating and sadly, all their flavors taste the same…

Frozen YUM — we always find time to stop in at Orange Leaf. They have fat free and non dairy choices, and all the topings I could every ask for. Cheesecake softserve is the new sliced bread!

Sometimes when I’m feeling particularly stupid (all the time), I like to treat myself to some frozen yogurt at Orange Leaf, under the guise that it’s healthy. I mean, there are a bunch of signs everywhere that read «LOW FAT» and, even better, «NO FAT!» It’s just like eating really expensive oxygen!
Of course the yogurt there is only low in fat if you refuse to dump pounds of crushed candy bars and globules of cheesecake lumps onto it, an act which requires me to actively disable my brain during the process, or else face the horrible truth that my previously low-​fat food has suddenly morphed into a grotesquely high-​fat disaster. Defiling something so low fat could arguably be seen as an act of desecration, but fortunately I was raised Catholic, so I’m used to ignoring guilt. Their wedding cake flavor is one of my favorites, mostly because it conjures mental images of getting married. To cake. Inside a frozen yogurt store. And that’s always been one of my most wonderful dreams in life.
On a related note, don’t go to the somewhat nearby Yogurtini store, because it’s terrible compared to Orange Leaf. I’m writing that in this review, just in case I get all lazy and forgot to review that place. Their frozen yogurt tastes like licking a wheelbarrow full of shrimp that has been sitting outside the garage of a Jiffy Lube for three days.

In a word, delish!
I love any restaurant where it’s a choose your own adventure situation and you get to make your own. Chocolate craving? Ok, we got that. Wanna load up on fruit? We can do that too. Would you like some bulbous orange juice filled little marble things to top your sundae? No problem!
Hubby and I stopped into this place just before 7 on a Sunday night. It was busy but the line wasn’t insane. Most tables were full and there’s a nice amount of outdoor seating as well. The line moved quickly.
The floor in front of the toppings area was a bit messy. That is really my only complaint. But hey, Lee’s Summit is kidland and kids are going to spill crap on the floor.
Quality wise, the yogurt was really tasty. I had a fruity craving, so I had a small amount each of the original flavor (tastes like Greek yogurt! Yum!), peach and pineapple. Topped her off with a few strawberries, blueberries and blackberries. Husband had the choco coco which was so amazing if you’re a coconut fan. I’m all about that one next time.
The amount of topping choices was great. I wasn’t left wanting anything. The spoons they use look kind of like shovels. A nice departure from the ordinary.

I’m making an appointment at the auto repair shop tomorrow to have my wheels put back in alignment. It seems every time I drive down 291 Highway in Lee’s Summit, the car instinctively veers gently towards Orange Leaf.
Actually, a car that had some sort of a mechanical hankerin’ for frozen treats would have a tough time navigating 291 Hwy between Chipman and 350: Sherridan’s and Custard’s Last Stand have long since provided Lee’s Summit residents a place to go for delicious and, I can only assume, super healthy snacks.
Naturally, there needs to be a third «ice cream» place plopped right in the middle. Well, I don’t think Orange Leaf needs to worry much about competing for business. I predict the place will be jumping when the weather gets a little warmer. The patio will be the place to be after every elementary baseball game this season.
If you haven’t yet been, what are you waiting for?

Mr. Sweet Tooth boyfriend about gave me whiplash swinging his Jeep around into a parking space when he saw this storefront, whilst attempting to cut through Hobby Lobby’s parking lot to get to HyVee after missing a turn. Just another day in suburbia. This explains how I ended up at a fro-​yo joint (something I’d been observing the renaissance of, but had yet to have partaken in) after TWO FREAKING HOURS at the gym. Really.
Okay. I had no knowledge of how this trend actually worked, regardless of reading about how these places are apparently popping up like weeds in shopping centers from here to Lenexa. My general impression was that it was a build-​it-​and-​weigh-​it affair, and since I always hated college food court cafeterias and hospital dining rooms for this reason, I was skeptical. Then I remembered something very important. When it comes to frozen concoctions, I’m satisfied with a few spoonfuls, and then I’m done. I’m not the «I ate a whole pint of Ben & Jerry’s in one sitting, whoops!» girl, at all… I get pretty satiated on ice cream and its ilk pretty quickly — I was born with a highly undersized sweet tooth. That being the case, this place is PERFECT for me. No gigantic trough of ice cream for x amount of dollars that I won’t finish, or will finish and feel sick and like I“m going into a diabetic coma. I can get a me-​sized portion of something (ostensibly?) more health-​conscious than ice cream, and have total control over portion size and expenditure size. I like that.
I saw that they have various flavors of yogurt at maybe 8 – 10 stations on the wall… I opted for the totally plain one (not vanilla, but plain yogurt). To my delighted surprise, it actually tasted like plain yogurt (did I mention, not much of a sweet tooth?)…crisp, somewhat tangy. Boyfriend, of course, had the brownie batter flavor. Topped with various cookie particles and chocolate chips and whatnot. This is the guy who ran like 5 miles to my walked two, humph. I opted for fruit toppings, and was ELATED to discover that they had wonderful, fresh, juicy, plump, whole berries… not frozen/​thawed pulpy berries swimming in syruppy sauce. So I tossed on quite a few strawberries, blackerries, and blueberries, and dusted it off with some slivered almonds, and it was still reasonably priced, because I went easy on the yogurt. It was more fruit with yogurt than yogurt with fruit. It was wondrous.
The place was, indeed, bright, cheerful, and happy, and would have likely felt that way even if it hadn’t mostly been full of parents with the under 7-​year old set. The interior design scheme is very «Contemporary Preschool,» lots of bright colors, geometrics, and whimsically designed chairs and benches. I don’t see how you could leave the place in a bad mood. They also have a punchcard, which is also good at Roxberry Juice, which I’ve never been to.