We recently connected with Alyson & Mallory Caillaud-Jones and have shared our conversation below.

Alyson & Mallory, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

We had both been working in the film world and were between jobs and I (Alyson) just wanted to work in a coffee shop again for a while because I loved making coffee so much and thought it would be a nice change of pace.

One day, the two of us were sitting in a coffee shop and I looked around and I said to Mallory “this is what I want to do, I just want to own a cafe”. And she turned to me and said “Well then, do it!” The thought had never actually crossed my mind as a possibility since I had gone to school for Film and Video. So I replied “Well, if I do then you have to do it with me and make the pastries for it”. Mallory had always loved baking and had been told by several friends that she should sell her baked goods. That was a big turning moment for us, and we thought, why not try it out and see if it works. On October 30th, 2019 we officially became an LLC.

We’re half French/half American so we always knew we wanted to open a French-American fusion patisserie with a full espresso menu and cocktails (in our case, we offer Non-Alcoholic Cocktails using NA Spirits). But we knew that we would have to build towards that, so we started operating under Cottage Food Law out of of a home kitchen.

We started with a few pop ups and were building momentum when the Covid-19 pandemic shutdown began. To be safe, we decided to put Chartreuse Sisters on hold. A few months passed and we came up with a plan to safely make and deliver Monthly Goodie Boxes. Since the plan was (and is) to have a monthly rotating menu, this would help us to see if customers liked the rotating box idea and would helps to recipe test different flavor combinations to build our menu.

By September 2020 we had both decided to take the next step and both quit our other jobs and went full time with the business; by committing to the idea we could see if it would actually work. Many, many goodies boxes later, after participating in some farmer’s markets and starting a monthly subscription, we finally decided that it was time to start looking for a space to open the storefront, which had been the goal all along.

In March 2021 we saw the location that would be our future Patisserie Cafe Dry Bar. It was a building we had passed our whole lives that hadn’t been occupied for as long as we could remember. Built in the early 1900’s the space had original tiles and ceiling from the previous Drugstore that had once occupied it. It was very dirty, needed a lot of work, and checked almost none of the boxes on our “must have” lists we had given to our realtor, but it was perfect! We saw the work that needed to be done, but also the potential. Almost two years later, we had our grand opening on January 14th, 2023!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

We are a sister-run patisserie offering unique flavors often inspired by our French-American heritage with a full espresso menu, teas, made-to-order drip coffee and Non-Alcoholic cocktails.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

We really started to grow our customer base during the pandemic with our goodie box deliveries. Since we were delivering right to people’s doors and texting them and emailing them directly with updates, this created a relationship with those customers and most of them are still following and supporting us today! Since then, we try to respond to every message, comment, etc that we are able to on our social media pages as well as emails to let people know we appreciate their support and reaching out to us.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

We raised money through Indiegogo donations from our customers and supporters and we were also able to secure a loan to help with the cost of renovation for our space.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.chartreusesisters.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chartreusesistersgr/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chartreusesisters
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/chartreuse-sisters-no-title

Image Credits
Courtesy of Chartreuse Sisters