How do two chefs build their business from a food truck to two brick-and-mortar locations in less than four years?
Hard work, good timing, help from economic development organizations, a bank and friends, and excellent croissants.
This is the story of The Croissanterie in Little Rock, founded and owned by Jill McDonald, executive chef, and Wendy Schay, pastry chef. Both are certified executive chefs, having earned that designation from the American Culinary Federation.
McDonald, a Dumas native, has been in Little Rock for more than 25 years, working in restaurants including the Purple Cow and Red Lobster. Schay, born in Rockford, Illinois, and raised near Long Beach, California, moved to Arkansas 35 years ago. Her parents are in the restaurant industry, but Schay became a nurse.
As her children grew older, Schay decided she wanted to attend culinary school. She and McDonald met in about 2015 at the Culinary Arts & Hospitality Management Institute at the University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College. Both attended the institute and went on to work there.
Schay began competing — and winning — baking and pastry competitions locally and nationwide. “I was competing and I like a challenge and hard things, and croissants are hard,” she said. One of the chefs at the school who is from France “fell in love” with her croissants because “they reminded him of home,” Schay said.
He began using them in his catering business, requiring her to make a lot of croissants. Schay began advertising her croissants on social media and then she and McDonald began offering them at the Hillcrest Farmers Market. “And it didn’t take long before somebody asked for a breakfast sandwich on the croissant,” she said.
Working with Nicolas Mayerhoeffer at the Arkansas Small Business & Technology Development Center, they invested $20,000 in a food truck in February 2020. They also obtained a $100,000 Small Business Administration loan through Arkansas Capital Corp., working with Richard Phelps.
Then COVID hit in March, but by November 2020, the pair had their food truck and “for food trucks, it was a booming time,” Schay said. They used only about $56,000 of their loan and paid it off within about 18 months.
A friend, Alejandro Gutierrez, owner of Tacos Godoy, alerted them to a space at 14710 Cantrell Road, and on March 16, 2022, McDonald and Schay opened their first brick-and-mortar location. Phelps, now at Central Bank in Little Rock, reached out to them, and they received a $30,000 line of credit from the bank, which they’ve used only once and which has been paid off.
On Aug. 5, McDonald and Schay opened a 600-SF location in the Little Rock Technology Park at 417 Main St.
During the food truck’s first year, its revenue totaled $126,000. Last year, The Croissanterie’s revenue totaled $880,000. They’re set to break $1 million this year. And that’s a lot of bread.
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