St. George » After a 20-year hiatus, the Southern California-based Golden Spoon Frozen Yogurt has re-entered the Utah market.

Currently, Utah's only Golden Spoon frozen yogurt business is tucked away in a strip mall at the intersection of Bluff and Sunset streets in St. George. Golden Spoon opened the franchise in 2007, and is under contract to open four other locations in southern Utah, with plans to have as many as 30 franchises throughout the state during the next four years.

St. George franchise owner David Hughes sells 12 varieties of the soft-serve frozen treat. Cake batter, old-fashioned vanilla and mango-tart are some of the favorite flavors. Wayne Klinzing, a server who dishes up yogurt with a variety of candy and fruit toppings, said the day usually starts slow, but by night it is not unusual to have customers lined up out the door.

Store regulars Judy and Wes Robbins have a frequent-customer card they get stamped each time they patronize the store, eventually earning a free yogurt.

"You can indulge and not feel like you've done a sin," she laughed.

Shari Dill said when she lived in California, Golden Spoons were on almost every corner.

"When we moved to St. George, we were laughing that the only thing missing was a Golden Spoon -- and then one opened up," she said.

Chief Executive Officer Roger Clawson, in Salt Lake City this week to make the expansion announcement, said he expects the first frozen yogurt stores along the Wasatch Front, likely in Provo and Ogden, to open by midsummer.

All Golden Spoons are franchised so that owners will not have to compete with corporate-owned locations, said Franchising President Ed Evans. The company is looking for people wanting to run between three and 10 stores each.

The return to Utah is a personal homecoming for both Clawson and Evans.

Clawson spent this teen years in Farmington and played football at Davis High School and the University of Utah before transferring to Southern University. Evans, a U. graduate, was born and reared on the east side of Salt Lake City.

Today, the soft-serve frozen yogurt chain, headquartered in Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., has more than 100 stores in the Southwest and Japan. Plans are to have 500 new stores under contract by the end of the year.

Utahns may remember Golden Spoon from the 1980s until internal management issues forced it to withdraw from the Beehive State.

The Utah locations were renamed Golden Swirl, which eventually opened outlets in grocery stores in a partnership with Smith's Food & Drug. Over the next 15 years, Golden Swirl changed hands several times before closing. The last store, in Cottonwood Mall, closed three years ago.

In the meantime, Jeff Barns, who founded Golden Spoon in 1983, reacquired ownership of the Southern California stores in 1993, relaunching operations under his leadership. Its growth skyrocketed with the 2008 creation of Golden Spoon Franchising, which has overseen expansion into the Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tokyo markets.