Writer: Tiffany Adams Photographer: Rett Peek
With breakfast, lunch, and a soon-to-open larger location, The Croissanterie makes flaking out a good thing
If a love of food brought chefs Wendy Schay and Jill McDonald together, a passion for serving others has made their west Little Rock restaurant a success. Since opening the brick-and-mortar location of The Croissanterie in 2021, they’ve developed a steady stream of repeat customers they fondly refer to as “flakey friends.” Now, with the goal of serving more people, having more offerings, and, yes, more space, they plan to move the operation to a larger location inside the building that formerly housed Capers Restaurant on Highway 10. We asked them to share a bit about their journey, what the new space will look like, and what they want people to know about the eatery that has become beloved for its buttery croissants and delectable pastries as well as its breakfast dishes and burgers.
PLATED: How did you get your start in the food industry?
Jill McDonald: I’m originally from Dumas. After school, I moved to Little Rock and got a job in the food industry, and I’ve now been in it almost 27 years. I didn’t go to culinary school until I hurt my back in a car accident. I wanted a way to stay in the industry, so I went to the culinary program at Pulaski Tech, and that’s where Wendy and I met.
Wendy Schay: I graduated from high school in Mayflower, and actually became a NICU nurse at UAMS. I have always baked since my kids were little, and as they got older and I had more time, I decided to take classes at Pulaski Tech. I was encouraged to do baking competitions and just really fell in love with it; it’s addictive! I stayed on as a teacher when they opened up the high school program and Jill was the director of catering as well as an instructor there.
PLATED: So you formed a friendship there. How did that lead to selling croissants?
JM: Wendy has always liked things that were just a little bit harder, and that’s where croissants came in—it was a challenge to do them right. She started making them for one of the chefs at the school who catered and happened to be French. He was our taste tester and when she finally got it he had tears in his eyes and said, OK, these taste like home, now you’ve got to do something with them. When she made them for his catering jobs, she would make more and we would sell them out of the car. We were doing croissant deals in parking lots! That grew to us selling at farmers markets, and one day someone walked by and asked, When can we get a breakfast sandwich on one of these? That solidified our idea for the food truck.
WS: We signed the papers for our food truck in February 2020 but because of COVID didn’t receive it until November of that year. Shortly thereafter, the program I was teaching was paused because of the pandemic, so we went full speed with the food truck.
PLATED: What made you want to go from a food truck to a brick-and-mortar restaurant?
JM: We are some of the lucky ones who can say that we are where we are because of COVID. The landlord for our current building came and found us at the food truck festival. Our neighbor here, Tacos Godoy, told us about the space, and it was just supposed to be a prep kitchen for us, giving us the space to expand our wholesale options. When people found out we were coming in here, they said, You are going to do your breakfast sandwiches right? I was like, Well, I guess so.
WS: We thought we would do both but it was just so busy. We only ran the food truck five times the first year we were here. We were still so hands-on; if we took the food truck out, we had to close the restaurant.
PLATED: And now you’re moving to a larger location that can seat almost three times more people. What can customers expect to experience in your new venue?
JM: Our new space will offer a full-service coffee lounge, and we’re going to have extended hours to give people more opportunities to come. We want it to be a place where people feel comfortable to come get a pastry, sit on the couch with their laptop, or have a meeting with someone. You can spend the afternoon here. We’ll also have a private dining space that seats around 40 people. We’re keeping the deck that was so well-known at Capers and changing the entrance to the side so that we can use the wide front porch for seating as well.
WS: If you remember the former Market at Capers that was on the side of the building, we’re going to close that to the public and make it our full bakery kitchen for all the production. We will hold classes there for croissants, cinnamon rolls, gingerbread, macarons, and even some savory classes with guest chefs.
JM: We get asked all the time if we are going to offer dinner and the answer is we don’t know. In some form, I want to say yes, but we don’t know how or when. We will still host our monthly supper club for the time being though.
PLATED: Community seems to be a focus for you. Outside of creating a comfortable space and opportunities for people to gather, are there any other ways you are pouring into the local scene?
JM: We make everything we possibly can here—the bread, the salad dressing, all of it—and we source our ingredients from as many local vendors as possible. We get our beef, pork, and eggs from Double B Farm & Ranch; our mushrooms from Driftwood Farms; the microgreens from Legacy Roots. We drive to Cabot to get Holland Bottom strawberries in the spring. We use Esau’s corn, honey from Guenther’s Apiary, Rock Town liquors, Flyway Beer, and several locally roasted coffees. We’re always looking to grow this list. We’re very blessed to be doing what we’re doing and in the way that we’re doing it. For us, the community supports us and we want to be involved with the community in as many ways as we can.
WS: We’re also teachers at heart. We couldn’t do any of this without the right staff, so we’ll bring people on and teach them the process, which helps us continue to grow.
Recipe: Croissanterie Quiche
SHOP
1 pie crust, parbaked (visit our blog for their from-scratch recipe)
2 cups shredded cheese of choice (they use a mix of sharp cheddar, colby jack, Swiss, and gruyere)
½ cup Parmesan cheese, shredded
½ cup yellow onion, chopped
1 tablespoon garlic, chopped
5 large eggs
⅔ cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon Cavender’s Greek seasoning
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon dry chives
1 tablespoon dry parsley
1 cup inclusions of choice (see below)
Ideas for Inclusions of Choice:
Quiche Lorraine: Add chopped bacon
Western Quiche: ⅓ cup each of cooked onions, bell pepper, and mushrooms
Roasted butternut squash and Gorgonzola cheese (a Croissanterie favorite!)
Cherry tomatoes and asparagus
Summer squash and Rotel (drained)
PREPARE
Preheat oven to 325°F. Mix all ingredients except for pie crust. Once mixed, add 1 cup of any inclusions of choice for a variation. You can add almost anything except liquids. Bake for 1 hour or until the center is almost fully set.
The Croissanterie will soon open their new location in the former Capers Restaurant building at 14502 Cantrell Road in Little Rock. For now, you can visit them nearby at 14710 Cantrell Road, Suite A5 in the same shopping center as Pizza Cafe West and Tacos Godoy. Visit thecroissanterielr.com or follow along on Facebook and Instagram (@thecroissanterielr) for updates.
