08/06/2024
Nero - stories of what once used to be a little waffle bar. Episode 3: mini waffles.
It's 2013. We survived our first winter. A big test for many restaurants as business slows down considerably. And with only a handful of tables in our tiny shop, we could only seat a limited number of people. Spring and summer, business would bounce back and after a year in business we would consistently have a full house more often than not. People would line up and wait for tables. Or some would not have the patience to wait, I mean it’s just waffles right. What a great problem to have.
Often when the shop was full the team would have their hands free. And there’s only so much prep work and cleaning work to do. We were wondering what else we could do to generate some extra revenue and to keep ourselves busy. That’s when we started making mini liège waffles. Smaller versions of our already popular liège waffles. Two or 3 bites, perfect as a quick sweet snack or after dinner dessert. And most importantly, great to take to go!
While many appreciate the taste and complexity of a true liège waffle - the way we eat them in Belgium, we soon started experimenting with the mini waffles. What if we dip them in chocolate, incorporate some almonds into the dough or … fill them! The inspiration for a cream filled mini waffle again comes from our old country Belgium and its many classic gastronomic delicacies: the “koffiekoek”. Pretty much flemish for danish pastry but with some unique Belgian twists. My favourite would be one with “chocola en pudding”, filled with custard cream and glazed in chocolate.
I won’t claim we invented filled mini waffles but maybe we did. And oh boy did they ever become a big hit. We made our vanilla custard from scratch (and still do!) and had a hard time keeping up. Although the vanilla custard ones were the big favourites, we had about 3 to 4 different mini waffles at that time. We started selling them in boxes and making hundreds for parties and events. To the point where we had to come in 2 and half hours before opening on weekends to get a display case filled with hundreds of these mini waffles as they would fly out the door once we opened.
Fast forward and we decided to start selling boxes of 7 mini waffles. What an odd number you might think unless it had a biblical meaning which it doesn’t. We wanted to design dedicated boxes for our mini waffles and gave it a lot of thought. Anyone would buy 5. Six would be considered a half dozen. So we did 7 because why not. Who would say no to buying 7 waffles. Not too few, not too many.
You would think boxes of 7 meant we had 7 different mini waffles. But that did not happen until the pandemic hit and we shifted to only selling mini waffles for a while. Restaurants were closed and we were only allowed to do take out. Despite that, we noticed we were doing pretty ok by just selling mini waffles. With all the extra time we had, we also developed more and more flavours. If there is one positive thing that stems from that time, is that now when you get a box of 7 mini waffles, you can have 7 different flavours at any given time. That is when we do not run out or sell out, which in all honesty happens quite often. Our shops are busier than ever and the mini waffles still sell incredibly well, but our kitchens are fairly small and not setup for this high volume. We started doing pre-orders for pick up and that took off as well in the past couple of years.
So again we are facing a great problem. And again we found a great solution. This time in the shape of a new location, with a new concept: mini waffles only. Yes that’s right, our 3rd location will focus solely on our mini liège waffles and we can again take this amazing product to the next level. A dedicated production line for our mini waffles, more space, more flavours, we want to start doing more events, make vegan mini waffles and so many more things. We truly love this product. Mini waffles for maximum happiness.
(2861 Granville St. Opening tomorrow, Wednesday August 7 at 8am)
