Today we’d like to introduce you to Irine Dong.
Hi Irine, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Due to the lack of light-sweet desserts locally, I started to make myself and my friends desserts during my college time at the Penn State. All my friends and family recognized my desserts and then I start to sell them to multiple restaurants, group, and establishments locally.
I moved to Houston after my husband graduated at 2015, following that, we started a small bakery shop in an office building. We started to sell our signature desserts to multiple restaurants and tea shops in Houston at that time. After getting more customers’ attention, we moved to a plaza location in 2019, where we can bring more traffic and customers to enjoy our non-super-sweet desserts.
Now, we are partnering with more than 20 local restaurants and establishments to distribute our new desserts to the customers. Our crepe cakes is becoming the top shining dish.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Many customers are not familiar with crepe cakes at the beginning and they considered the desserts are pricy. Indeed, all our desserts are hand-made, especially the crepe cakes, which could cost a person more than 4 hours to finish a single whole one.
The other struggle is the location of our first store is not a traffic convenient location and had many restrictions on open hours. We later moved to a plaza location at 12001 richmond ave to solve the issue and expanded our business.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We are a fine desserts shop located at 12001 Richmond Ave, STE 8, Houston, TX 77082, signature with Mille Crepe Cakes, which is consisting of 18-22 layers of paper-thin crepe with fresh pastry cream between each two layers.
We offer single dessert, dessert table, event desserts, and many more.
Customers can order from our existing menu at thecafetopia.com or call in at 713-333-2579, or walk in to discuss any customized desserts for events or wholesale.
Pricing:
- $8.49 single slice of crepe cakes
- Weekday happy hour from Tuesday-Friday after 16:30, majority of desserts on sale for 20% off
- Starting from $59 for whole crepe cake
- Other desserts starting from $3.99
- Drinks and coffee available from $2.99
Contact Info:
- Email: 318irinecafe@gmail.com
- Website: www.thecafetopia.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eat_cafetopia/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Eat_Cafetopia-122318872503987/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/cafetopia-houston
