“It’s kind of like the point is waiting in the line,” said Roz Patterson, a customer standing on Arrow Street in the ever fluctuating string of people trailing out of BerryLine’s front door.
“Everybody knows about BerryLine,” customer Hugo Yuan said. “Everyone just talks about it,” added a friend, Kang Xi Yong.
Owner and co-founder Matt Wallace says that people “think because there’s a line, it must be good. And it’s the whole line culture thing.”
The lines and wait times vary by time of day – it could be 5 to 10 minutes in the afternoon, 15 minutes in the evenings, and Yuan said he’s waited half an hour on a weekend. But there’s always a line.
The frozen yogurt shop, which opened in 2007 has always been a successful and beloved Cambridge spot, the business has seen a surge in popularity the last few years due to some viral TikTok videos showing off the delicious and aesthetic product, some with up to hundreds of thousands of views.
Wallace says that customers come into the store all the time saying that they found it through TikTok.
“We have obviously had a bunch of TikTok videos over the last couple of years that have really blown up… which is amazing because it’s completely user-generated, customer-generated stuff I had zero part in,” Wallace said.
Originally named as a play on the Red Line, which rumbled below as they were readying the shop, now BerryLine reflects the throngs of people that flood Arrow Street each afternoon and evening.
“The beauty of having more customers is it allows for flexibility in other areas,” Wallace said. “With the increased business, I’m able to invest a lot more in the employees.”
“Another benefit of being busy is … we can keep our prices down a bit relative to some other establishments,” Wallace added. BerryLine’s frozen yogurt starts at $4.24, and goes up to $5.78 to add one topping and $6.39 for multiple toppings.
The product
The staff do a lot of prep to meet demand on the products. “There’s like so much that goes into getting the store ready that, you know, customers don’t even see,” Wallace said. “That’s from making the yogurt, cutting the fresh fruit. We have our bakers in, baking the homemade mochi and all the toppings.”
“There’s a lot of baking to do… basically everything we baked the day before is pretty much gone the next day,” said Christina Henley, the baker.
Its mochi is a fan favorite. “The mochi is like the best mochi I’ve ever had,” said Kendall Chase, a customer standing in line on their second visit to BerryLine. “It is phenomenal frozen yogurt.”
“The mochi is really good,” agreed Bhavini Pandey, adding that she thinks “the flavors are really unique.”
BerryLine’s current flavor rotation offers the always available Original tart flavor, in addition to Lychee and Blueberry Lemon. Past flavors include Ube-Banana, Lavender Honey, and Oreo Peppermint.
Wallace reminds his employees that they are not only selling frozen yogurt, but an experience and an “aesthetically pleasing final product. People like to walk out the door holding their BerryLine that’s covered in fresh fruit and homemade toppings and look at it and go like, ‘wow.’”
“I like to try to make it pretty for people and when I get a compliment, I’m like, ‘yes!’” said Jayi Kirwan, who has been working at BerryLine for about three months.
“Every component about it is a tier above the rest,” said Yuan.
Line it up
Claire O’Leary only had to wait five minutes the first time she visited, and she didn’t mind. “It’s nice to see a local small business doing so well, and having a line at like 3 o’clock is awesome,” O’Leary said.
“I think this place really deserves it,” Pandey said.
Patterson, a local Cambridge high schooler, thinks one benefit of the lines is that they keep people outside and makes “Cambridge feel more alive.”
“I think it’s good for the community. I think it’s like a pretty pivotal spot for the younger life in Cambridge,” Patterson’s friend Fiona Litman said.
Looking back and looking forward
Wallace opened the business with his roommate and friend Eric Pok Yang while the pair completed their postdocs at MIT and Harvard respectively. Yang left the business in 2014 to work in biotech in Taiwan.
“We were still students at heart and wanted to create a more student-focused establishment, and so we kind of hit upon the froyo thing,” Wallace said. “Froyo and ice cream was kind of coming into vogue back in 2007 when we started it, and we were the first ones in town, no one else was doing it, and so it just made a lot of sense.”
The business had other storefronts in the past, on Newbury Street and in the Fenway until 2014, and a Mass. Avenue store that closed in 2021 after being a “casualty of the pandemic,” Wallace said.
Wallace said that closing their other locations “focused all the attention on this one little store.” He believes that has led to the extra success, although if they opened another store, “we could service more customers,” he said.
But, “I’m very hands-on and I like the small locally owned shop feel. And I, you know, I think by having me focus on the one store, it’s really helped the brand,” he said. Wallace bought the neighboring business Faro Cafe in April, which has offered more seating for BerryLine customers in the evenings.
“I think a lot of times customers don’t think that the owners appreciate the little things that they do from the customer side,” Wallace said. “And I really, I do. I appreciate all the positivity that everyone sends our way.”
“I think they need to open more shops,” said Xi Yong.
“We have the same number of people going through the door, whether it’s four people in line or 40 people in line,” Wallace said of the small storefront. “If we had a storefront that was four times bigger with multiple doors, I think that would destroy some of the charm, but we could, you know, service more customers.”
Tavishi Chattopadyay contributed reporting to this story.
This story was updated to correct Fiona Litman’s name.
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