. “Alexa, the woman who owns it, is a trained pastry chef,” Arneson said. “She makes her own sprinkles. Have you ever had a homemade sprinkle?”
Davies said having the extra foot traffic has been huge, especially when she has a new person cross her threshold who’s never had one of her vegan croissants. It was hard to nail, she said, because the French “love their full-fat butter,” so she spent months developing a vegan alternative — through trial-and-error, studying other croissants and doing taste tests with her family.
“It’s cool that these shops are curated, all these businesses that offer food,” Davies said, noting her neighbors Normal, La Barba Coffee“We have a lot of cross foot-traffic, and I’ll get someone who’ll come in and say, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m breastfeeding but my baby’s allergic to milk and I haven’t had a croissant in so long,’ and they’re so excited,” she said. “And we have people who normally wouldn’t try vegan food.