Lisa Gasparian, Owner
Origins
I’ve always been a foodie. My family was in the Subway sandwich franchise world. I had spent ten years at Deloitte in consulting after college and I was unfortunately getting separated from my husband. I thought: what is something I can do with my little guy? At the time, Alex was 2. Now he’s 14. I remembered my family taking all of us kids to the shops, so I thought I’d start a franchise and take my son with me everywhere. It was very hard but I got approved and chosen by a franchise called Amerino. I trained with them in Paris and New York and I opened their flagship in Chicago. I stayed with them for seven years. Then Covid happened and I would either be a victim of Covid or continue on the path that I love, which is service and hospitality. I feel like if God opens the door, I’ll walk through it. I was able to create my own brand, get into better retail and start over. Cafe Cremerie is really my brainchild of everything I learned from the franchise world and how I could do that concept better.
It was super risky. At the time, the banks hated restaurants. I basically took whatever I had left to start over. I slowly started curating Cafe Cremerie based on all my experiences that I loved; everything from the trays to the logos to the colors I designed. I opened my flagship store on State Street and a second one in Fulton Market. I designed both of my cafes. I am not a baker. But I’m more of the brains behind the creative and operations sides of the business.
I think what sets my cafe apart from everything else in Chicago is the experience. It’s the ambiance, the array of sweet versus savory in the gelato. Everything is $16 and less, so you won’t unexpectedly pay $20 for something because it’s in the city. You’re there for the $4 croissants and the $6 smoothie.
Company Mission
It’s a European inspired cafe. I love everything about France. There was a little town called Avignon that had the cutest bakeries. There was actually a place there called Cremerie something. I thought of the name Cafe Cremerie, but there was a place in Paris in Saint Germain with the name. They were closing down because of Covid, and the family let me buy the domain from them.
The name is very Parisian, because in Paris, Le Cremerie can be a name for a place for any place that sells sweets to gelato to cheese or whatever, so I just thought it would be a great name. You can see in my logos, the interlocking CCs really work well for branding and marketing.
Everything about it is charming. People walk in to get something to go and they stay because it’s so cute. It’s a welcoming spot for a time out. We live in a very fast-paced Chicago and the fact that people want to time out at my café is the greatest compliment.
Signature Products
In the pastry category, I would say just always the traditional pastry, traditional croissant or chocolate croissant is always a favorite. Next would be the almandine danish, and then we do a spinach feta bistro. Those are like really our top sellers. We also do copas and cakes. I think because we’re in the Midwest, the cheesecakes tend to move the fastest, but anything chocolate always wins. The gelato is always a big fan favorite and then people really love our affogato.
Equipment ‘Must Haves’
I would say my gelato case, because it displays the gelato so beautifully. Also, the refrigerated cake display is about 70 inches long, and we’re able to do our single slice system so everything just looks really pretty.
I don’t have an art background, but I do have an eye for design. I’ve spent significant time traveling, studying cafes and seeing what I like, and I created it with my architect: the palettes, the colors. I had an idea for the wallpaper and the paint color, because it’s prominent in places like Paris coffee shops. I just had to find the right shade, get samples, see how they looked. I think the Café at State Street is beautiful. The decisions and the time that it took to pick the right colors and the right wallpaper was about 25 to 30 hours each.
Secrets of Success
Having your own business is not easy. You have to have tenacity and perseverance, and you need to be okay with the highs and lows. When you’re in this world, whether it’s construction, design, opening, training, operating revenue, managing people, there are a lot of people in your life, a lot of moving parts every day.
You’ll wake up and somebody doesn’t show up or delivery doesn’t show up. There are just so many moving parts in owning a retail restaurant, especially a restaurant business, because your milk vendor is different from your fruit vendor and then your bread delivery is different from your other deliveries.
I always say in general you build your people and they build your business. I think if anyone has an idea, they can do it. But it goes back to the pillars of perseverance and tenacity. How much do you have in you to really make it happen? A lot of people talk and not a lot of people do. If you don’t really bet on yourself, it’s not going to happen.
Production Tip
I like to be very diligent and picky about who you hire whether it’s for baking, front of line service, whoever. The teamwork has to be central to every aspect of your business because that simply grows your culture. When there is not a strong culture, you do not have a strong team, and so a strong culture really makes the biggest of differences.
Future Plans
I don’t know if the cafe itself will be different because the cafe is working. I do think that I would have future plans to expand if the right door opened for me. I would like to geo-target Chicago as the base of the brand. I’ve had some inquiries about other cities, but I’m not there yet. I’m a single mom, so I have three and a half more years with my son before he goes to college. In that time here, I want to keep building the brand that I’ve built in Chicago. If those inquiries come in in two or three years, that might be a more advantageous time. I just had a call with somebody who wants to open one in Miami. It’s flattering, but I think a brand is as strong as the pillars it has. I think brands that start in a city and really build that city turn out to be the stronger brands.
Photos courtesy of Cafe Cremerie
For more info, visit www.instagram.com/cafe.cremerie
(This article appeared in the Summer 32 issue of Pastry Arts Magazine)
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