Small pastry shop brings France to Austin

Just a few steps from the iconic “Welcome to Austin,” postcard mural lies a small business that at first glance could be mistaken for a house. But behind the door lies a little bit of France in the form of pastries.

La Patisserie is a small French pastry shop and cafe located on Annie Street near South First. It was opened in 2010 by chemical engineer Soraiya Nagree and has since seen its business double, generating about $1,000 a month.

“Last year we launched the CroBrio which gave us a huge boost in sales from August until the end of the year,” Nagree said. “This year, due to that being a regular part of our menu I expect us to see better sales than last year overall.”

The CroBrio is sold only on the weekend and is a croissant-brioche hybrid dough that has been deep fried and pumped with a pastry crème filling and then coated with chocolate glaze or rolled in cinnamon sugar.

However, their most popular pastry are the macarons which sell for $2.10 each. Currently, La Patisserie makes 1,000 macarons a week with many flavors ranging from salted caramel to the seasonal tomato basil goat cheese.

“It is definitely a labor of love,” Nagree said. “It takes a full three days from start to finish to create a perfectly made macaron.”

Macarons are a delicate meringue-based confection that is filled with a crème. According to Nagree, when La Patisserie opened up they were hoping to introduce Austinites to French-style macarons and not many people knew what they were.

“Over the past few years, that little pastry has really made a name for itself in the U.S. and people come to La Patisserie seeking them out,” Nagree said. “We have to educate people a lot less about them now; they walk in and know exactly what they are.”

According to Nagree, their main objective is to make customers happy and satisfied with their purchase and interaction with them is necessary.

“One of the main merits to working at this place is that Soraiya takes a very high road strategy when it comes to her customers,” La Patisserie barista and pastry clerk Kayla Goertz said. “She loves to take care of people and I very much believe in that way to do business and it makes the job much more enjoyable.”

On average, La Patisserie sees an average of 30 to 40 customers per day, with the weekends being the heaviest and even though it is a few steps away from the traffic of South First, it manages to be a nice, quaint location, according to employees.

“I think it’s a good location and the size is great,” La Patisserie pastry clerk James Kim said. “People like it because it’s small and cute and they say that. If it were any bigger it would be more commercial and more fast pace which people don’t like.”

One of their many offering is small play area to allow parents to bring their children. Being the mother of two, Nagree saw the need for such a space.

“I always struggled to find a place to meet with girlfriends where we could actually have a conversation instead of chasing down our kids,” Nagree said. “Our play area gives moms a safety net to be able to put down their nice cup of coffee and actually sip it instead of guzzling it down.”

Apart from offering pastries, La Patisserie offers a kids’ cooking class series, Les Petites, which started about a year ago.

“It has been a huge success and we really enjoy teaching kids how to make things that are a little more complicated then what most kids cooking classes involve,” Nagree said. “I love cooking at home with my kiddos and so it was so important for us to be able to show how fun it can be.”

This story was written for a class assignment in May 2014.