Crepes Anyone? CrepeBerry Is Open In Wellesley

WELLESLEY, MA ― If you search Yelp for crepes in Wellesley, there's only one restaurant that pops up, and that one just arrived about two months ago, aptly named CrepeBerry.

Amelia Childs opened the crepe and smoothie shop on June 9 in the space where Dorset Cafe sat for about a decade. Childs said when she found the space it was already pretty perfect, so aside from a new paint job (the walls are now a bright purple and green) and a new sign she didn't have to change much.

"It's awesome. We're just a warm and inviting place," she said recently at the end of a busy Tuesday work day. "And we're really excited to be in Wellesley Hills."

Childs had been thinking about expanding from her seven seat Newton Highlands "Broken Grounds Cafe," when the landlord decided he had other plans for the space she'd set up shop and paid her rent on time for the past two years.

Though parting with the community she'd had in Newton was sad, she called it a blessing in disguise.

"It was time for me to move on. I had wanted a bigger space. All in all I feel it was a blessing. Maybe I just needed the extra nudge. This is a great location for me. I wanted to something a bit more fun," she said.

So she added crepes to her menu and funked the vibe out a bit. In addition to the crepes and smoothies you'll find vegan and gluten friendly menu items.

But Childs, who has been vegan since she was 14, says she specializes in “accessibly vegetarian” fare. This means she won't be serving fake meat or real meat for that matter in her breakfast sandwiches. Instead, look for whole, mostly unprocessed foods; "It's just good healthy food that happens to be vegetarian. So I look at it is as a form of activism. And it's a way to help people have a little less meat in their diet... You don't need to be a vegetarian to love crepes."

What she loves

Childs, who just turned 28, wasn't always planning to be a small business owner. She went to school for photography, and spent hours immersed in the dark room there. But she always loved food and when she wasn't in the dark room she was in the kitchen.

But one day after her college friends had all moved out of state she was looking for a job that was a bit more social. So she got a job at a coffee shop.

The interview sealed the deal. She said when she was interviewing for the job, she realized that's what she wanted to do, she wanted to work with people and food.

"Food is cool because it brings people together," she said sipping coffee from her new cafe.

She's not the type to sit still and has learned a lot on the go. Since graduating from college, she's been the general manager at Squeeze Juice, she's worked in a dark room and as a marketing manager, and she also taught vegan cooking classes and juicing at the Cambridge Center for Adult learning. And somewhere in there she became a Reiki master and makes house calls for people dealing with PTSD and clients with cancer.

But the cafe is her love, and the kitchen is where she spends most of in her time.

In 2015 she and a silent partner started up shop on Walnut Street and she loved it. She said she doesn't miss the dark room to the surprise of her family. But she does include art displays on the walls of her new shop - along with a picture of the gang at Broken Grounds Cafe that her staff gave her before they closed.

She was most nervous about leaving that community behind.

"Broken Grounds was a real neighborhood spot and I would love to have that same sense of community here in Wellesley," she said.

It looks like that won't be a problem. She retained a number of employees from the old place. And a number of her loyal customers pop over from time to time, too. And, she said, she's starting to see a new crop of regulars in the new space.

The most popular item on the menu? NutellaBella. A crepe made with a generous scoop of Nutella, slices of Banana, Strawberry and a slide of whipped cream topped with a dash of cinnamon. ($7.99)

CrepeBerry is open 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday–Friday and 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

Photos by Jenna Fisher/ Patch Staff