Back in January, best friends Nathalie Del Valle and Maya Matta got a big idea.
The pair remembers the exact date they started talking about opening a Greek frozen yogurt shop: “January 5th,” Matta and Del Valle said in unison.
Two days later, they had ordered their first test machine, a soft-serve ice cream maker, Matta said.
After months of selling froyo out of their apartment and later hosting sold-out pop-ups all around the city, the best friends have officially opened the first brick-and-mortar home for their independent froyo brand Mikono. It opened in Pilsen on Monday to a long line of enthusiastic followers that wrapped around the building.
Mikono’s first customer, Amber Moran, got in line at 4 p.m., an hour before opening. In town for the summer from Ireland on a work visa, she first heard of the froyo shop from a Chicago influencer’s TikTok.
“We don’t have frozen yogurt at home, so I’ve been really enjoying [it] over here,” Moran said.
Each 23, Del Valle and Matta have dipped into their savings and upgraded their equipment. They made a nearly $15,000 investment, taxes and tariffs factored in, into an ice cream machine sourced from New Zealand. So far, their gamble has been worth the risk.
They’re operating out of the kitchen at the Latina Sweat Project, at 949 W. 16th St., a yoga studio offering classes in Pilates, dance and yoga. The residency at the studio is open from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday and 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends while the duo works on their permanent storefront, set to open in Lincoln Park later this fall.
“There are multiple Greek restaurants that serve Greek froyo as a dessert option, but we wanted to offer it in more variety,” Del Valle said. “There just wasn’t a lot of options for grab-and-go.”
Their recipe blends high-quality Greek yogurt with fresh tropical fruit, grown on and shipped to Chicago from a Miami farm, for what they describe as a guilt-free, low-sugar dessert.
“We wanted to do flavors that were natural, so this machine allowed us to just put frozen fruit into it and blend it into the yogurt,” Del Valle continued.
Matta and Del Valle said their concept is Chicago’s first Latina-owned Greek frozen yogurt shop. The girls hope their residency will become a third space where people can build community in the South Side neighborhood.
The two met during a tech sales internship at Google’s Chicago headquarters in 2024 and hit it off almost immediately. Their stories felt really similar, especially as the daughters of immigrants, they said.
“Our relationship is so strong ’cause we literally work together, live together, we’re roommates, and we go to the gym together,” Matta said. “We literally do everything together . . . and we both had a vision. We wanted to work really hard and build something good.”
Del Valle and Matta both work full-time jobs to fund their shop, and hope that the residency will help put them on the right path for their Lincoln Park shop.
“We still haven’t been able to pay all the expenses of our machinery and all these things,” Del Valle said. “So I think this will finally give us the opportunity to see something of all the work that we’ve been doing.”
After perfecting a recipe earlier this year, Del Valle and Matta started doing drops out of their River West apartment.
“When we started, we would bring people into our apartment … and all these girls would knock on our door, and we’d just serve them the froyo,” Del Valle said. “It was just a really beautiful community that we started to build. We never expected it to turn into this.”
The pop-ups always sold out, Matta said, adding that she thinks they’ve quickly gained a following by bringing their followers along on Instagram and TikTok.
“We’re learning how to build out a storefront, pay tariffs, pay taxes, all the things,” Matta said. “We’re just like your average people, too, and we just want to bring community.”
Del Valle, a Miami native, has a cousin back home who owns a large fruit farm. There, the grounds are filled with dozens of mango, guava and other tropical fruit trees. Eventually, the yields became so large that they began gifting them to family friends and neighbors, but they still had too much fruit.
Del Valle’s grandmother, known as Abuelita Lina, started experimenting with the fruits and making jams and sauces, she said.
“She made guava honey, which I’ve literally never seen before,” Del Valle said. That’s on their list of toppings available at the Pilsen shop, which also includes mango honey, guava sauce, olive oil, strawberry and mango chunks, chia seeds, coconut shavings and sea salt.
“That’s just a little piece of home that we’re going to bring to Mikono,” Del Valle said.
A 10-ounce serving of plain Greek frozen yogurt goes for $10, with two included toppings, and you can upgrade to a coconut shell cup for $3 extra. Choose from strawberry or mixed berry add-ins for $2 more.