Paris, Je’taime

By Melanie Duzyj

“You even going to get anything, little man?” Nick Mallia yells to Ben, a twelve-year-old boy who has just walked into the cramped store. Nick peels two fresh crepes from the stovetops behind the cashier counter, then he hurries to check the new orders that his employee has just entered. He straightens the row of receipts over the stove as he begins cooking two new Tuscan crepes. Mallia is singing along to “Fergalicious,” the song blasting through the restaurant speakers from his iPod in the backroom. He warns Ben that he won’t buy any Girl Scout cookies from him if Ben has visited to sell them today. After serving a fresh plate of Nutella cannolis to a middle-aged couple, he hurries to answer the phone, “Paris Creperie, this is Nick.”

Paris Creperie has reeled in attention from customers throughout Boston. The small, always-packed creperie sits in Coolidge Corner, a community in Brookline, Massachusetts. The Improper Bostonian magazine deems Coolidge Corner “one of the coolest urban neighborhoods in the country.” There are over 200 storefronts in Coolidge, including clothing boutiques, sushi bars, bookstores, health food stores and numerous coffee shops. Only about 30 percent of these businesses are companies with nine or more branches. Paris is one of these independently owned shops, and its business thrives despite its corporate neighbors.

Starbucks and Qdoba glare at Paris from across the street, and a brand-new Panera Bread down the block boasts its mass-produced coffee grinds. These chain stores foil Paris’s cozily cramped ambiance and tempting menu; the chains attract consumers who enjoy predictability. Residents are now worrying about preserving the eccentric, independent-shop culture in Coolidge Corner, which the city council describes as the “commercial and cultural Mecca of Brookline.”

“I kind of yearn for Coolidge Corner to hold onto its independent roots,” says Joe Chartier, an employee at Brookline Booksmith. “I think a lot of people know it as a place in the city that’s a little bit different, but I guess chains like Panera can afford the rents,” says Chartier. But Mallia, Paris’s general manager, continues to bop to his iPod and feels unthreatened by these commercial bullies. Mallia isn’t ignorant of corporate power; he just happens to understand Paris’s special circumstances that keep it from losing customers.

Ben, the pesky twelve-year-old who often hangs around the restaurant after school, exemplifies one reason Paris will always boom with business. “We’re one of the few places that won’t kick him out,” Mallia says, laughing and adjusting his thick glasses, “Maybe he’s in here a little too much, among the waves of people.” At Paris, the businessmen grab coffees in the morning; mothers share sandwiches with their children in the early afternoon, and grade school students swing in for snack crepes after school. The evenings draw-in mixtures of college students in study groups, high schoolers on dates, and more. And Mallia believes this range of people protects Paris from losing business to Starbuck’s global domination; he believes these distinct types of people will remain faithful to Paris.

“There’s a dichotomy of independent versus corporate in the area, that’s why [the chain stores] haven’t affected our business,” says Mallia. Having worked for decades at many independently owned restaurants, Mallia has practiced business strategies that corporations never could have taught him. He first worked at a small restaurant in Haverhill, Massachusetts, and then in small Brookline coffee shops when he was in college. “Everything I know, I learned from my first boss,” says Mallia. His boss would tell him, “Today’s children customers are tomorrow’s grown-up customers.” Mallia heeds this advice when he lets kids like Ben come into the creperie after school. “It works, and where else would they go? Some kids later end up working at the store too,” Mallia says. Employing the people whom he had first met as devoted customers or interesting individuals, Mallia has built a family of workers at Paris who genuinely care for the store.

The booming business proves that customers have noticed this genuineness. Bloggers and journalists discuss the welcoming and entertaining employees at Paris; in fact, many comment on Mallia’s persona as often as they discuss the restaurant’s food. “Completely 110% satisfied with the crepes,” comments one blogger, Paola C., on Yelp.com. “Plus on top of that the guy behind the counter was anecdotal and witty and I fully enjoyed chatting with him,” she writes. Mallia and his employees often meet and chat with the customers. Mallia tells his staff, “Okay, don’t be fake; don’t be mean.” Customers don’t appreciate hearing the same lines over and over, he explains, “plus we don’t want to be boring.”

Across the street at Panera Bread, the management has strained to employ this same tactic to make customers feel appreciated. “People feel welcomed and relaxed in our store’s environment,” says David Ofgant, the general manager at Panera Bread. “That’s why people come; we’re an oasis away from the everyday life,” says Ofgant. Mallia rolls his eyes when he later hears this. “Customers can tell if a worker has a bad attitude… we here don’t want to be flaky at all,” Mallia comments.

Though aware of Starbuck’s or Panera Bread’s reputation to smash independently owned coffee shops, Mallia appreciates the competition these companies provide for Paris. He explains that the rival companies’ innovative products and quality customer service only force him to make his own store better. “They keep us on our toes, instead of letting us sit around becoming stagnant,” he says. Mallia even admits to sometimes walking across the street to buy his favorite venti drink from the competition. “I can’t hate them for doing [coffee] really well,” he says.

“People aren’t stupid; they know where they’re going,” Mallia says, demonstrating a strong faith that Brookline residents are conscious of supporting either corporate or privately owned shops. Ofgant, however, claims that only 48% of his customers can tell that Panera is a franchise. The City of Brookline even granted the new Panera specific guidelines so that it appeared less like a chain store. The Brookline Planning Board had suggested creating an old mosaic outside the store and a large, “neighborhood-like” patio area. “You get away from the hustle and bustle,” Ofgant says of his store’s ambiance, adding that Panera doesn’t display holiday or seasonal decorations. Each Panera Bread in the United States has the same distinct products and the same general appearance, give or take a fireplace or patio.

With the influx of corporate chains like Starbucks, Qdoba and Panera Bread in Coolidge Corner, an onlooker might think that Brookline residents are losing their appreciation for their unique storefronts and restaurants. “The area is in danger of losing its unique quality,” says Kate Harris, the owner of Crossroads Trade in Coolidge Corner. Harris’s shop, just across the street from Paris Creperie, sells hand-made trinkets from vendors around the world. Harris had been hoping to open a store in Coolidge Corner for over six years, and she finally opened Crossroads Trade two years ago. “It’s definitely a complex and interesting place,” Harris says of Coolidge Corner, “but it is a struggle for independent workers to stay alive here.” In 30 minutes, only four customers entered Harris’s store, and only one woman purchased a pair of earrings. “I think the Merchants need a visible response to the community, to let people know who we are,” Harris says.

These “Merchants” are the members of the Coolidge Corner Merchants Association, a coalition of Brookline business owners and supporters who work to retain the strong community and culture in Brookline. Harris, a member, attends Merchant meetings once a month to help brainstorm marketing strategies for the area. The Merchants, for example, held a citywide festival when the last Harry Potter book was released, and numerous stores participated in the celebration. Currently, the Merchants are planning to design a tote bag that all the Merchant storeowners will sell to help fund the Fair Trade Federation. Projects like the tote bag initiative bind the small business owners together, helping to create Brookline’s close-knit community.

“Everyone sees each other so much, it’s inevitable,” Mallia says of the companionship between Coolidge Corner shop owners and customers. Paris contributes to the community too; the creperie grants a 10% discount to any member of the Coolidge Corner Theatre Club, an organization that requires yearly dues of members to help preserve the Coolidge Corner Theatre. This theatre, though only a few miles from the Regal Fenway Cinema, operates as one of the United States’ last not-for-profit movie theatres. The theatre struggles to survive, playing midnight showings of Citizen Kane while nearby AMC Theatres feature mainstream Will Ferrell or Kevin Spacey flicks.

Still, Mallia nonchalantly defends his habit to buy popular Panera sandwiches during his lunch breaks. “We just aren’t going to fall or lose the culture; I’m not worried,” Mallia says. The truth is that Mallia is a proud capitalist too, and he soon wants to expand Paris Creperie to multiple locations. “The problem is that it would have to be in Coolidge, in another place,” he says.

Paris wouldn’t thrive just anywhere; it just perfectly fits Brookline’s personality. The un-uniformed employees, cramped tables, irregular serving pans, and peculiar menu items appeal to cultural preferences that still exist in Brookline, but not everywhere in Boston. Paris did, in fact, try to branch out a couple years ago. Brookline’s Paris Creperie opened a sister store near Government Center, and the store boomed with customers for three years before closing. Mallia explains that, ironically, the store was “too saturated with business; the place was bled dry.” Paris in Brookline creates a lucrative balance between its popular business and small setting. This balance could never be sustained in a downtown Boston location. Blogger Erin E. on Yelp.com comments, “All in all, [Paris] is like the best of crepes without all the nastiness and trash of the actual city to contend with.”

Truly, Paris Creperie is an anomaly in the United States’ trend of corporate monsters swallowing independent businesses. Small-shop Paris sits comfortably beside the Panera and Qdoba monsters. Paris appeals to such specific groups of people, and its employees offer customers friendships and experiences that few other companies could fabricate. Most impressively, the manager feels no bitterness for the corporate world; he instead welcomes it. “Coolidge Corner needed a place like Panera,” Mallia says, “People need places to hang out on the weekends.”

And this nonchalant, let’s-go-with-it attitude is why Paris works. Why Paris works to draw in customers, works to preserve the community culture, works to serve a great meal. Sure, people can grab coffee at Panera down the block. But then there is Paris, with its signature Nutella latte, served by a lanky dude jiving to “Fergalicious” and tripping over customers in the cramped shop. That’s what dreams are made of.

References

"Community Involvement." Coolidge Corner Merchants' Association. 1 April 2008.
http://www.coolidgecornermerchants.com/content/view/5/15/. 1 April 2008.

Downs, Andreae. "Panera Bakes Up Plans for Coolidge Corner." Boston.Com. 15 July 2007.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/07/15/
panera_bakes_up_plans_for_coolidge_corner. 1 April 2008.

Harris, Kate. Personal Interview. Brookline. 3 April 2008.

Mallia, Nick. Personal Interview. Brookline. 7 April 2008.

Ofgant, David. Personal Interview. Brookline. 1 April 2008.

"Paris Creperie." Yelp.Com. 2008. http://www.yelp.com/biz/paris-creperie-brookline. 23 March 2008.

Scarpati, Jessica. "Panera Panned." Wicked Local Brookline. 11 January 2007.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/brookline/archive/x401729766. 1 April 2008.