Emmanuel Ventouris, Is an Entrepreneur With Over Four Decades of Experience in the Catering Business

Emmanuel Ventouris, Emmanuel Ventouris Illinois, Emmanuel Ventouris Freeport

​Emmanuel Ventouris is an entrepreneur with over four decades of experience in the catering business. He is the proud owner of Candy Coffee, a coffee shop in Minnesota that combines the coffee shop atmosphere with the delight of high-quality sweets.

Even though St. Paul is not exactly known for its cafe culture, Ventouris plans to change this by introducing customers to the pleasure of sipping a flavored coffee in a unique location. The venue of Candy Cafe has a vintage-feel combined with modern amenities. The face is decorated with mismatched tables and furniture that contribute to the distinctive look of the coffee shop.

Emmanuel Ventouris started his journey in the catering industry by creating unique foods for children’s parties. He always focused on using traditional, unprocessed ingredients and traditional recipes. He quickly realized that not only children were fascinated by his food, but also adults, who would always request more sweets for upcoming parties.

This realization made Ventouris expand his business and share his food and coffee with everyone. His coffee shop is located in the center of St. Paul and is meant to make help people stop for a few minutes and enjoy a sip of coffee after a session of shopping or after a long day of work. Even though it’s named Candy Cafe, sweets aren’t the only thing on the menu. You can enjoy a large range of lunches and salads too.

The cafe ice cream is served through the window. You can choose from a number of traditional recipes and a few new, experimental flavors. Clients are always welcome to provide suggestions for new flavors or how current flavors can be improved. A few selected suggestions are included on the menu every month.

What makes Ventouris stand out is his customer centric approach, which makes it easy for him to develop relationships with his clients, ask for their opinions, and ultimately get better at delivering what his customers want. His plan is to add a new flavor every month. At the end of the year, customers can pick a flavor that will be permanently added to the menu.

To encourage his customers to bring suggestions to the table, he offers a free lunch with free ice cream and a selection of sweets for the best flavor ideas. One week after Cafe Candy opened, the suggestion box was already filling up.

Emmanuel Ventouris also distinguishes himself through the freshness of the ingredients he uses. Everything is prepared on-site, nothing frozen. His experience in the catering business helped him get in touch with suppliers across Minnesota who produce everything locally.

The most appealing aspect of Candy Cafe is the candy that takes you back to a time when Hershey's bars and Twizzlers were popular. At Candy Cafe, you can taste marshmallows made using a recipe from 1850 as well as the Kendal mint cake that was first prepared 300 years ago.

Ventouris not only wants his clients to experiment with one of the best sweet recipes ever invented, but he also wants to serve them a piece of history. The walls of the coffee shop feature extract from old recipe books that describe the first potato crisp recipe, published 200 years ago by Dr. William Kitchiner's.

While the coffee just opened up, Ventourist is confident his customers will share his passion for sweets and their history. Cafe Candy is already becoming the talk of the town, mostly for its distinctive atmosphere and the owner’s customer-centric approach. Anyone can suggest new flavors and taste old, unique recipes that can’t be found anywhere else in town.

Source: Emmanuel Ventouris

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