Meet Sandra Hahn of Crêpes & Grapes Café in Whittier

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sandra Hahn.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Sandra. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
When I was a little girl, we called crepes “the good tortillas”. My background in food goes back to when I was eight years old: I would sneak out of school to work at a local bakery.

Years later, I opened my first hair salon after studying relentlessly for my cosmetology license. Then, years after that styling adventure, I started making and selling soap from home – my house smelled incredible!

From the beginning, I’ve always been an entrepreneur, so it was natural and fitting to go back to my roots of cooking and love of food. Finally, I decided to embark on being a restaurateur.

Opening Crêpes & Grapes Café was a way to incorporate family and our #WhittierStrong community. We are so grateful to be a part of this incredible town because everyone here is shining with resilience through this unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic and working together.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
There have been many challenges from building a restaurant from the ground up such as capital – first and foremost as well as understanding the economic structure of business. I believe that by investing more in my education, I could have made better decisions in my ambitious visions.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Crêpes & Grapes Café story. Tell us more about the business.
We are a full service – or were a full-service crêperie, so we specialize in crepes, both sweet and savory. This pandemic has shifted our services to exclusively offer take-out, delivery, and curbside pick-up (everyday from 8:30am to 3pm).

We are known for community involvement in local event planning and the arts as well as creating connections throughout local businesses. We’re proud of being in such an amazing, supportive community!

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
Luck has been in choosing Uptown Whittier as our hometown! Establishing roots here has been the best decision for my family and I. Further still, this luck played into my business venture by everything seeming to fall into place at the most opportune times.

Before deciding on opening Crêpes & Grapes Café, my husband and I needed to choose to either relocate to Florida where our corporate jobs were being moved to or staying here and looking for new jobs. Faced with this dilemma, we opted to dive into entrepreneurialism as a “what do we have to lose, but gain” mentality.

Here we are now, over 16 years later.

Contact Info:

• Address: 6560 Greenleaf Ave.
  Whittier, CA 90601
• Website: www.crepesandgrapescafe.com
• Phone: 562-696-3255
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: @crepesgrapes
• Facebook: @crepesandgrapescafe
• Twitter: @crepesandgrapes
• Yelp: www.yelp.com/biz/crepes-and-grapes-whittier-2
• Other: www.youtube.com/channel/UC9srzVa9J9jhfJAaVCjWd6A

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