As life begins to slowly pick itself up from the pandemic, running a new business has been especially difficult for the owners of the new Guelph Puffle Café during the pandemic.
“It’s very challenging,” said Khanh Tran, who co-owns Puffle Café with his wife Linh Vu. The café opened the second week of July.
“You see the pace of life. It’s nice to take five-10 minutes to come in and enjoy one of our sweets,” said Tran. “Call it a pitstop and re-energize.”
Located on 219 Silvercreek Pkwy., across from Food Basics, Puffle Café specializes in Japanese cheesecake, waffles, ice cream, cream puffs, paninis and Vietnamese espresso that range from $2 to $15.
The store’s plan to open on March 19 was delayed by the pandemic and so the couple waited until Phase 3 of Ontario’s reopening plan to officially open Puffle Café's doors.
“We don’t know how to estimate how many people will be coming through the door so we don’t know how much to bake, how much to order, and we don’t want to over order,” said Tran.
He said opening the restaurant was in the works for a long time and it all started with Vu’s passion for baking.
“One day, two years ago, I asked her, ‘What would you like to do?’ and this is the type of thing she likes to do and I said ‘Okay, let’s do it!” said Tran who left his profession in the insurance realm to start the café.
He found the location and Vu created a menu mixing different cuisines such as Japanese cheesecake, freshly brewed coffee from beans extracted from Tran’s family coffee farm in Vietnam and European crepes.
“We learned a lot of things simply,” said Tran.
While the couple is of Vietnamese descent, they said learning about Japanese and European dishes is something that they enjoy.
Bu said she learned how to bake through online baking courses and lots of trial and error so she can share the unique tastes available in her café with everybody in the city.
To cope with safety measures needed as a result of the pandemic, the couple distanced their seating arrangements inside, introduced outdoor seating and are even working on making every item on their menu deliverable for people to enjoy.
“We definitely put a lot of passion in our food. You can see it and you will be able to taste it too,” said Tran.
He said opening his café on the plaza in Silvercreek holds sentimental value because it is the same plaza in which his parents owned A & A appliances for 15 years.
“When this became available we thought it was exciting because it’s on the corner of Silvercreek and Speedvale so there’s a lot of traffic as you can see,” said Tran.
Puffle Café is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday.
Tran said he hopes people will come and try the unique and new dishes available in his café whose name is derived from the idea of a fluffy texture that the Japanese cheesecake is known to have.
“It’s very nice, it’s not too sweet and it doesn’t make you feel heavy after you finish eating it,” said Tran.
