After being disappointed by the so-called Belgian waffles served by American diners and hotels, Toon De Schepper \u2014 born and raised in Belgium \u2014 sought to bring a taste of home to the United States.<\/p>\n
De Schepper moved to the country as a teenager to pursue a hockey career, eventually landing at Wilkes University, where he met Billy Berry.<\/p>\n
\u201cToon would order it, thinking he\u2019d get a home specialty treat, and sadly he was mistaken because they\u2019re so different from the real authentic Belgian waffles,\u201d Berry said. \u201cThat\u2019s where the idea sparked \u2014 he thought he could bring something from Belgium over to America that we don\u2019t have. There is a lack of it and a lack of awareness of it. Toon would often say waffles here are \u2018waffle-shaped pancakes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
A Belgium waffle comes from dough, and most American waffles are water- and batter-based, Berry said.<\/p>\n
The business sells Liege waffles \u2014 invented in Liege, Belgium \u2014 in several different menu variations, including the S\u2019more Waffle, featuring mini-marshmallows, Biscoff crumbles and chocolate sauce; the Berry Blast, containing strawberries, blueberries and whipped cream; and the Chunky Monkey, featuring peanut butter, bananas, vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it\u2019s cooked, it\u2019s a lot chewier and there is just more flavor in general,\u201d Berry added. \u201cThere are pearl sugar cubes in the waffle. Once it hits on the iron and warms up, it creates a nice layer over the waffle, caramelizes around the edges and gives an extra sweet taste to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The college roommates and teammates on the Colonels ice hockey team first discussed selling waffles while taking a business class.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen, we got sent home for COVID and thought, \u2018Why not try this?\u2019\u201d said Berry, originally from Redding, Connecticut.<\/p>\n
They launched their business, All Belgium Food Truck, in Luzerne County in 2021, and the Chicago-based company now operates food trucks in 18 locations throughout the country \u2014 from Philadelphia to Phoenix and Wilkes-Barre to Washington, D.C. \u2014 and one storefront location, All Belgium Waffles, at 344 Adams Ave. in Scranton.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started with one, tiny ice cream van in Wilkes-Barre and events went crazy,\u201d Berry said. \u201cWe started to get double booked and triple booked. We were headed in the right direction very quickly. We thought, \u2018Why not expand our market and really hammer the idea of spreading the Belgian waffle in a slacked market in America?\u2019 We wanted to be the ones spreading it around the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
De Schepper and Berry previously operated a brick-and-mortar store in Wilkes-Barre before moving those operations to the Electric City.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a little walk-up window in the back alleyway off Main Street and then we found a better space, in a bigger city, that had some indoor seating,\u201d Berry said.<\/p>\n
While they moved into the downtown space just under two years ago, the business didn\u2019t open in Scranton until this past fall. A grand reopening was held in late March.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a new logo outside, and we redesigned some of the menu items and the appearance of the store,\u201d Berry said.<\/p>\n
Berry noted extending hours until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights provides a boost for the waffle shop.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing open late on the weekends is definitely good for us with the college scene,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the harder part for us has been getting the awareness out about what a Belgian waffle really is and why it\u2019s so authentic. It\u2019s a whole different flavor and taste.\u201d<\/p>\n
Entering college, Berry envisioned working in corporate America after graduation, but establishing the food truck business with De Schepper altered his plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you put your passion and heart into something, it\u2019s hard to go another way, so we went full force with it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After being disappointed by the so-called Belgian waffles served by American diners and hotels, Toon De Schepper \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[73152,73158,73157,73155,73154,178,180,179,73156,2685,73153],"class_list":{"0":"post-162030","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-belgian-waffles","9":"tag-belgium","10":"tag-billy-berry","11":"tag-de-schepper","12":"tag-liege-waffles","13":"tag-scranton","14":"tag-scranton-headlines","15":"tag-scranton-news","16":"tag-toon-de-schepper","17":"tag-wilkes-barre","18":"tag-wilkes-university"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}