Originally published in the Spring 2020 issue of SPOKE+BLOSSOM.

Eliza Grégoire has been eating her grandmother Lulu’s crêpes since she was a child. Growing up in a French-speaking household with French parents established her love for French culture and food. This love translated into a passion for delicious crêpes. At 18 years old, Grégoire founded LULU Crêpe with three guiding principles: simple, organic and quality.

LULU Crêpe’s simplistic, classic menu features five crêpes: sugar, Nutella, peanut butter, jam and honey, and six toppings: bananas, strawberries, chocolate chips, almonds, walnuts and cinnamon. All ingredients are organic, and the crêpe recipe is the same one Grégoire grew up eating.

“My favorite thing about starting LULU Crêpe is to share a piece of my culture with others. Seeing people smile when eating the crêpes makes me so happy and it feels really rewarding,” she says.

Now 19, Grégoire moved to the Grand Valley to be a part of the CMU cycling team and fell in love with the West. This includes local coffee establishment Kiln Coffee Bar in downtown Grand Junction. “I really appreciated their attention to detail and their engagement with the community.” After originally applying for a job, Grégoire built a relationship with David and Jonathan Foster, co-owners of Kiln Coffee Bar, and, eventually, proposed a partnership where she would be able to make and sell crêpes at the coffee bar.

Kiln frequently collaborates with local businesses and artists, with the goal of using collaboration to better the community’s businesses.

“Community connection is of major value to us. We try to filter our business decisions through this lens. Although having LULU Crêpe in our shop may lower pastry sales, it does have the possibility of connecting us with a new demographic of people. It also communicates to the community that we are not solely focused on ourselves. We are focused on what we can offer our community with our product and space,” explains David Foster. “Eliza is a phenomenal person and creates a quite tasty product to share. By choosing to identify with each other, it only strengthens the value of both of our brands.”

On October 1, 2019, LULU Crêpe set up its mobile stand in Kiln Coffee Bar for the first time. Since then, LULU Crêpe has returned every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday morning to sell crêpes to Kiln customers. LULU Crêpe is also available for event catering. More Information at lulucrepe.com.

French Flavor in Grand Junction: Lulu Crêpe + Kiln Coffee Bar