Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Just for clarification's sake - here's our location:

602 e. 600 n 
provo, ut 
84604

INSIDE the Village at South Campus' courtyard. We are the huge building right in the middle. 

Right now there is only street parking and you may have to walk a bit to get to us. 
(We're working on that!)

It Was Time For a Change

Wow.

It's crazy to think how much has changed for our little shop.

For those of you who have stuck with us from the beginning, you can totally appreciate how far we've come. For those of you who have more recently found a love for The Awful Waffle, I'd love to take a look back at our growth chart.

January 2009, the concept of a Belgian waffle and crepe joint was born.
January 2011, we moved to Belgium for a while then backpacked for a month throughout Europe (all the while collecting equipment and recipes and making life-long European friends along the way. Every train ride, bus trip or ferry ride  - we took the time to plan plan plan our new little business)
June 2011 - The Awful Waffle came to life. We had 1 type of waffle, 1 type of crepe, and an extremely limited menu
August-January- Lance and I (Ashley) began preparing to amp up the menu. We even imported dozens of Belgian Frite sauce to learn how to replicate our favorite ones...thus our two amazing frite sauces were figured out and perfected (Samourai or Brazil sauce, anyone?!). 
January 2012- We introduced the Stroopwafle (maybe we will bring it back one day?), a second waffle (hooray for Liege! The street-vendor style waffle!), and savoury crepes.
February 2012 - We FINALLY perfected the frite (Belgian Fry) preparing and cooking process...who knew that there are 20398 different potatoes, fry cut sizes, frying times and methods to making frites?! Not us. Luckily our friend from a Fritery in Liege, Belgium helped us along the way to make our frites perfect. Our sauces were finally ready to be introduced to the public.
August 2012 - We closed our doors at our tiny, humble, hole-in-the-wall shop at 800 n 700 e in Provo and opened them back up at our STUNNINGLY beautiful, new location at 600 n 602 e at The Village at South Campus in Provo. We expanded our menu to hand-crafted Italian pizza, made from all natural, whole ingredients daily and to-order. We will very soon be adding bratwursts to our menu. Currently we're re-vamping our savoury menu so that will be back soon as well! We also have made in-house, from scratch, daily italian Gelato that has zero preservatives and only the freshest ingredients! We have a little market in the back for The Village residents or any other person who'd like to use it. We sell milk, frozen goods, cereal, and even laundry detergent there! We also offer serve-yourself- frozen yogurt with an assortment of topping variety.

The journey has been extremely difficult, taxing, exciting, crazy, and SO much fun, and we really couldn't be happier about where we are (literally and physically).

 First and foremost, we have the BEST management team any human could possibly ask for. Have you met our General Manager, Jared yet? He has an incredibly witty sense of humor, brilliant brain and a very kind heart. We love him and are thankful for him! Jared and I have known each other and been dear friends for many years, and I suppose this project of mine intrigued him enough to want to take on this position. He has made my life/job so much easier over the course of a year, and now he's totally taken over the heavy lifting so I can stay home more to take care of my daughter. Please stop in and meet him sometime. He's for sure in the top list of my favorite people.

  I'm sure most of you have met and probably have learned to LOVE love love our Assistant Managers. All three of them have been with us over a year and are die-hard Awful Waffle lovers.

Assistant Manager Martha stepped in this summer when I surprisingly had my baby 6 weeks early and I needed a suitable replacement - QUICK. She became the manager of our little shop and did a better job than I could have ever imagined. The girls in the shop grew to love her more than they did before. She has the most contagious laugh and everywhere she goes, she leaves the place brighter and happier than she found it. She is genuinely a wonderful human, all around, and is beauitful, to boot! She has a pizza named after her - Martha's Margherita. It's fresh, light, and amazing - just like her. We're forever grateful for this girl!

Assistant Manager Jill lived in Africa this summer studying and learning in The Bush there and came home to be thrown into the madness of the preparation for our new shop. Jill is one of the most kind, most beautiful inside and out people I've ever known. She comes in a tiny package but is totally full of life and personality. We feel so lucky to have such a lovely, smart person in a management position. She's also the Gelato Master of the shop and each week she creates a new, surprising gelato flavor (all from scratch and all natural ingredients) - which is always called Jillato Gelato. Stop in every now and then to see what she's come up with!

Assistant Manager Jen also took the summer off to live on the west coast to spend time with her precious little nieces. She came home and joined Jill in being thrown into preparation for the new shop. After Jen's first month of employment she was awarded Employee of the Month. Yeah, she's that good. Jen is not only naturally beautiful and funny but is sort of a favorite around these parts - she reminds Lance and me of our best friends (who are two different people!). She has the best wit and sense of humor - when Jen's around, we're always laughing. Jen also has a pizza named in her honor - The Bentley...It's named that not only because the pizza is our top dollar, most fancy pizza, but also because it happens to be her last name! (Try it, it's delicious!)

Aren't you all jealous they're not your bosses?!

If you haven't noticed yet, we have the best STAFF in the entire state of Utah. Each and every employee is unique and have big personalities - but most importantly they are all good people with GREAT hearts and a zest for life (who just so happen to be able to make some incredibly great food). We're probably going to start doing staff bios here, so stop by here to check that out. We can't wait for you to meet and to get to know our amazing crew. We're like one big, growing family here and we totally value each and every member.

About our new shop - have you come in to check us out, yet? We know parking is a little rough (we're working on trying to get more convenient parking for our guests!), but once you make it inside, it's all worth it. We have chalkboard painted tables that we love for our guests to draw on. We even have chalkboard walls with all the chalk your heart could desire to decorate those walls with. We've got two lounge areas for you to stay and hang out in - we even have free wi-fi! Over time we will be having concerts and more dance parties held here, so stay tuned for the announcement of those dates. We've already signed up for 5 catering events for the month of September - so if you're thinking you'd like to book us for an event (your wedding/bridal shower/baby shower/luncheon/etc), you'd better act fast! We're filling up as we speak! Just email us at theawfulwaffleshop@gmail.com and we can talk.

Hopefully we will see you soon!

xoxo
Ashley - and all of us at The Awful Waffle (and Sixth Street Pizzeria)