Going Live

Equipment bought…check, crêpes formula mastered…check, name and branding….check! So with all this organised we now had to jump the final hurdle and actually work infront of the hopefully paying public.

Fast forward to our first event, which was a low key fete at the John White Community College, Coventry April 16^th 2011 and we were live in action. We took about £40. “This time next year Rodney we will be millionaires”. Just covering the pitch fee, it is a good job Amanda was happy receiving crêpes as a reward for her support!

A strange experience, this was the first time I had received money (apart from birthdays and pocket money) since I flogged some football ‘shinies’ (stickers) when I was a kid. A strange experience at first receiving money from strangers, I have quickly got used to this:-).

Since that first day we have continued to evolve and so without giving too much away to any crêpes wannabes the first Summer was a successful and great learning experience. Allowing I Love Crêpes to understand who our customers are and to therefore tailor our services to what people want! This continues to be reinforced by our commitment to deliver a professional, tasty and personal service.

With lots of hard work behind the scenes, setting up a business has been a fulfilling experience and one that we believe we will get further fulfilment from in return for the dedication we put in.

And to answer your question 2 years on we still love crêpes!

Research the tasty part.

So it turns out having an idea is the easy part, research and commitment need to follow swiftly to get the idea off the ground or before someone else moves the idea forward and gets the potential rewards.

Far from it being some laboratory setting, the initial stage of product research was simply in our kitchen with a frying pan. Trying to flip it, pancake like, I missed the ceiling by an inch for the crêpe to land in a heap but at least in the frying pan. With a good helping of Nutella and then closing my eyes it did taste good though.

We quickly found a winning formula, but the true test would be if it worked on a crêpe griddle and not just on a frying pan.

Research was the relatively easy thing to do; it’s this commitment lark that was the difficult part. Difficult being I needed to part with some cash! A commercial griddle was required and it took me a week to work up the courage to buy one.

Once I bought the griddle with a little trial and error we slowly taught ourselves how to use it. Far from being a blue chip company with thousands of pounds to spend we took our research to the next and highest level. Strict procedures were followed as the crêpes were put through the true rigours of the neighbourhood watch club, our neighbours. They walloped them down within seconds, which I am told is a good sign, though later they put us right when we developed the savoury mixture. Old people can be blunt! I am sure this is how the likes of Samsung work. You can see the IT geeks of Samsung popping around to their Grandparents with their latest gadget looking for approval.

Inspiration the easy part!

I Love Crêpes, opened 2 years to this very day. The inspiration was Malta (where you see a café selling crepes on every corner) far away from France where you would expect anyone to get the idea.

The seeds were sown when Amanda now my Wife, who openly admits to having a sweet tooth, could not get enough of these delights away on holiday. Despite my reluctance to part with my cash I was enjoying them too. My light bulb moment arrived or was it just a grumble in my stomach? If it’s good enough for us and the Maltese and other people from around the continent, then surely these are going to be liked back home in the UK.

From what I was aware there was not many crepêries or cafés selling crêpes on our high streets so there could be a gap in a market. Sitting in the sun, with a scrap of paper and pen I started to do a rough calculation of ingredient costs and the mark up required to make a profit. I also had to consider whether this would be value for money for the average person back home, the answer was yes!

Well that was the easy part... I now had to do my dragon dens style pitch to get Amanda on board, after all she was going to have sacrifice her weekends for me. But the endless supply of Nutella was enough to persuade anyone!

To be continued…

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