After a decade making crepes for locals, tourists, All Blacks and even Reese Witherspoon, the Charlie Brown crepe caravan celebrated its 10th\u00a0birthday this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Charlie Brown\u2019s owner, Adrien Paoli said that owning the crepe caravan was \u201cdestiny\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The caravan itself is from 1975, and was renovated for its new life as a crepe caravan in France before being shipped to New Zealand by the business\u2019s first owner\u00a0Charles Scarceriaux.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was a kid, I saw a programme on television about French people starting creperies in the United States and across the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a success, so I thought why not try it myself,\u201d Mr Paoli said.<\/p>\n
Mr Paoli had visited W\u0101naka\u00a0before as a tourist, but when he decided to move to the town just as Mr Scarceriaux was looking to sell the business in 2017, \u201cit was a dream come true\u201d, Mr Paoli said.<\/p>\n
Among the famous faces that have visited the caravan are a series of All Blacks that Mr Paoli doesn\u2019t remember the names of and star\u00a0of Legally Blonde, Reese Witherspoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anyone who has made a pancake and then watched a professional crepe-maker will know that there is a certain\u00a0je nais se quois when it comes to the technique of making a paper thin, perfectly circular pancake.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery French person makes crepes at home, but of course its a bit different to make them professionally \u2026 usually we train staff for two weeks on how to make them,\u201d Mr Paoli said.<\/p>\n
At present, the business employees six staff, but this can swell to 12 to 15 in the summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
From the humble beginnings of a single 1970s caravan, the business now has a second caravan to cater to events like Warbids Over W\u0101naka\u00a0and Ripe, as well as a bricks and mortar business in the neighbouring Charlie\u2019s Delicatassen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s in line with French culture,\u201d Mr Paoli said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really missing French food, and I wanted to share that with the rest of W\u0101naka.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reflecting on the business\u2019 10-year anniversary, Mr Paoli said that hospitality was at its heart.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople come here to have a good time and a great experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve created so many memories \u2026 we\u2019ve had families coming back after years happy to find we\u2019re still here, and we see kids growing up and coming back.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just food, it\u2019s sharing happiness.<\/p>\n
evie.sinclair@alliedmedia.co.nz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a decade making crepes for locals, tourists, All Blacks and even Reese Witherspoon, the Charlie Brown crepe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-548181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}