A ladyfinger cake is a signature item at Chapelure, 4750 S. Hagadorn Road. A whole cake retails for $35.
A lack of fine pastries and electrical outlets in East Lansing coffee shops led an MSU graduate to open a bakery to meet these pressing student demands.
Chapelure, 4750 S. Hagadorn Road, features a wide variety of European and Asian pastries and traditional coffee drinks.
Soogee Ahn’s family owns and operates SanSu Sushi and Cocktails, a restaurant next to Chapelure in Hannah Plaza.
When SanSu moved to a larger location, Ahn, owner of Chapelure, decided to open the bakery in late May of last year with her husband, co-owner Tae Ahn, in Sansu’s old location to offer the East Lansing community a place for fresh, hard-to-find pastries.
“I went to MSU and saw a lack of coffee shops with good quality pastries,” Ahn said.
Everything sold in the shop is made fresh every morning beginning at 3 a.m., she said. Everything is discounted 30 percent after 7 p.m. to make room for the next day’s baked goods, said.
The bakery’s specialities are its chocolate mousse cake, custard-filled pastries and red bean pastries.
Another of Ahn’s goals in opening the bakery was to offer students a place to study.
As a former health studies major, she said she kept students’ needs in mind when designing her bakery.
“We have a lot of outlets and free wi-fi,” Ahn said. “If you go to a lot of bakeries or coffee shops, you’re usually fighting for outlets.”
When designing the bakery, Ahn kept Michigan’s notoriously long winters in mind by choosing a warm color scheme.
Regan Foerster, a criminal justice master’s student, said the coffee shop has a relaxing atmosphere with lots of different seating arrangements, making it ideal for group meetings. He said he especially likes the caramel lattes.
Foerster regularly meets his professor at the coffee shop and gets a pastry every time, he said.
“I’ve tried something new every time I’ve come in and have yet to have anything I didn’t like,” Foerster said.
Melissa Small, an education major completing her student teaching, came in every day last semester and still studies at the coffee shop at least a couple of times each week.
Living two blocks down the road makes studying here convenient for her, she said.
The available parking and good pastries also motivate her to come in as often as she does.
“The staff here is really nice and the coffee is cheap,” Small said. “They also have free refills.”
The clientele of the shop also makes Chapelure a good place to study, she said. Small said the coffee shop caters mostly to graduate students and that leads to a quieter, more studious atmosphere.
Also, it is usually less crowded than other places closer to campus, she said.
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“I don’t feel like I have to jockey for a table,” Small said. “Even if I have to share, everybody is usually pretty nice about it.”
Word-of-mouth among graduate students led Jieun Cheung, an advertising graduate student, to make Chapelure her study spot more than once a week.
“My friends come here a lot,” Cheung said. “I started coming here after they recommended it.”
Ahn said word-of-mouth and advertising help from her family’s other business have led to steady growth in the number of people coming in to study and eat.
“Any business is slow to start, but the good word-of-mouth has been great,” Ahn said.
