TCBY The Country's Best Yogurt

It's the day after Thanksgiving, and a big percentage of America is still recovering from a day of overeating. That achiness you felt in your stomach yesterday is something Mark Davison of Quincy experienced numerous times in the past year. Davison, 49, has become something of a legend at The Country's Best Yogurt (TCBY), 18th and State. He was in the store a year ago when he noticed a group of kids taking the "TCBY Challenge." The challenge calls for eating a quart of frozen yogurt on the premises. If the challenge is met, a picture of the customer will be placed on the store's "Wall of Fame" and the person will receive a $1 coupon for a future purchase. Davison decided to give it a try. He ordered his favorite flavor, Chocolate Chocolate, and downed the entire quart in a little over five minutes. "It was a piece of cake," he said. Davison kept coming back to try the challenge again and again. But rather than use the little plastic spoon provided by the store, he would bring his own metal spoon and try to beat his previous time. Eventually, he got down to eating a quart in 2 & not;½ minutes. By May, Davison had consumed 50 quarts in six months. So a bigger photo of him was placed on the wall. Davison was determined to log 100 quarts. He reached that goal just two months later, but it required some serious consumption. "Once I reached 80, I decided to eat a quart a day until I was finished. So I ate 20 quarts in 20 days." The store posted another photo celebrating Davison's feat: 100 quarts in eight months. By then, Davison had reached his limit. He hasn't had a bite of frozen yogurt since. "After my 20 days of a quart a day, I told them that was it," he said. "I dropped it totally. I went from one extreme to the other." Store manager Sheryl Scarbrough said Davison has become a legend at TCBY. She said customers and employees still marvel at his accomplishment. "Nobody has come close to Mark," she said, noting how four or five customers met the TCBY Challenge six times -- enough to win a T-shirt -- but that's about it. Scarbrough launched the challenge in October 2009. She said she was motivated after a group of girls came in one afternoon. While most ordered small items, one girl bought a quart. "I said: 'Are you seriously going to eat that?' She said, 'Yeah.' So I said, 'If you eat that, I should do something for you.' " So Scarbrough developed the Wall of Fame to recognize any customer who eats a quart in one sitting. So far, more than 300 pictures grace the walls. "I didn't think it would take off the way it has," she said. "I was just going to do it for a year, but people still come in and want to do it. I was thinking about taking the pictures off the wall because we're running out of room, but people just love coming in and looking at the pictures and seeing their friends." Scarbrough said most who attempt the challenge are successful, but not all. "It's not as easy as you might think," she said. "Some people wolf it down, and some struggle." Davison, who insists he didn't gain any weight during his 100-quart run, said he seldom had difficulty meeting the challenge. Then one day, he jokingly asked Scarbrough if she would give him a free quart if he ate two in one sitting. "She said 'Yes.' So I ate two quarts, back to back." Rolaids, anyone?