Coffee & Treats in La Porte

Smart Drinks' expert staff quenches the thirsts of health-conscious clients with smoothies forged from fresh fruits and infused with wholesome supplements. Devoid of powders and preservatives, smoothies replenish clients with concoctions packed with fresh pineapples, strawberries, bananas, and boosters devised to impart specific health benefits. Muscles weary from jogging or arm wrestling a giraffe's neck can recover with smoothies imbued with a protein booster, and sugar-conscious tongues can lap up silky sips of a low-carb smoothie. Savvy staffers cheerfully advise clients on which libations and additives best fulfill particular physical needs, as well as identify the health benefits of their kosher line of vitamins from Bluebonnet Nutrition.

Solo Cakes & Cookies Cafe whips up batches of moist cupcakes and healthy soy cookies daily in addition to concocting wedding-day confections. A rotating menu of cupcake flavors includes classic standbys such as chocolate and vanilla, which sweetly complement cups of coffee. Staffers also eagerly accept the challenge of a custom order, adorning cake tops with intricate flowers and swirling frosting latticework. Customers surf free WiFi for recipe ideas or food-fight videos while bakers work, and Solo Cakes & Cookies Cafe serves Ethiopian breakfast noshes alongside a smorgasbord of sweets, which can be devoured atop square tables located indoors or streetside.

The confectioners of Yogurt Refinery Organic Frozen Yogurt craft the probiotic-filled frozen yogurt by using certified-kosher and organic ingredients and hormone-free milk from California, allowing all-natural flavors and raw cane sugar to shine through in the weekly selection of rotating flavors. The self-serve stations allow patrons to customize their fro-yo with a combination of flavors and fruit mix-ins. Each flavor excludes gluten, nuts, and eggs to offer tasty treats regardless of dietary restrictions or an ongoing feud with Mr. Peanut.

When patrons pop into Berri Swirl, they don't just come for the tasty frozen treats; they come for the chance to take control of their own dessert destinies. As they march confidently to the self-service dispensers stocked with 12 flavors of frozen yogurt, they're already calculating which bits of Butterfinger chunks, blackberries, and gummy bears they're going to pluck from the do-it-yourself toppings bar packed with more than 40 toppings. Swirls of delicious low-fat yogurt infused with tastes ranging from snickerdoodle-cookie-dough to triple chocolate descend into holders including cups, cones, wafer bowls, and 55-gallon drums made of marzipan. Along with this variety of toppings and flavors, the fro-yo gurus maintain their healthy standards by concocting their creamy creations from genuine dairy, milk, and fruit purées and handpicking their ingredients from a variety of sources. After patrons take one last look at their creamy creations, they can browse magazines or surf free WiFi while wolfing down their sweet achievements.

On small plantations, in secluded valleys, and at the foot of the Andes Mountains grow rich, aromatic, flavorful cacao beans. Since 1929, Chocolates El Rey, Inc. has gathered these much-sought-after pods, fermented them, sun-dried them, and crafted them into luscious gourmet chocolate. Much like wine is crafted from carefully selected grapes and tennis shoes are crafted from carefully selected tennis balls, Chocolates El Rey, Inc. uses only all-natural, fair-trade, single-origin Venezualan cocoa. Armed with these formidable beans, they produce velvety chocolate in sizes ranging from bars that depict the Mayan calendar to 22-pound wholesale blocks of a single chocolate. They also dole out chocolate as gifts for all occasions and as cooking ingredients that have earned wide acclaim from multiple chefs.

Fruity Pebbles. Rainbow sprinkles. Blueberries. Hot fudge. Eclectic sweets fill the toppings bar at ByBerries, where customers select an array of candy, cereal, nuts, and seasonal fruits to top self-serve frozen yogurt. The frosty flavors on tap rotate often, with options such as pumpkin, butter pecan, cappuccino, and banana coconut, but a selection of original, nonfat, and no-sugar-added varieties remains a constant. The self-serve forum inspires mixing and matching yogurts, ensuring that like snowflakes or the social security numbers of identical twins, no two dishes of fro-yo are alike.