Episode 61: How Crisp Waffle Company Turned a European Waffle Into a St. Pete Business | Todi Garay
Todi Garay never expected waffles to become the center of her business.
She actually grew up not really liking them.
The waffles she remembers were either too soft or too dry, and even when her mom tried cooking them longer, they still never had the texture she wanted.
That changed years later in Belgium.
Her coworkers convinced her to try a Liège waffle, and once she did, she finally understood what a waffle could be.
Crisp on the outside.
Soft and chewy in the middle.
Sweet, but not in the same way as a traditional batter waffle.
That one experience eventually became part of the idea behind Crisp Waffle Company.
In Episode 61 of Talkin’ St. Pete, Ryan Bogden sits down with Todi to talk about how she went from a long corporate career to opening her own business, why consistency matters so much to her, and what it took to bring authentic Liège waffles to Florida.
The Waffle That Changed Everything
A true Liège waffle is very different from the Belgian waffle most people are used to seeing on a diner menu.
Instead of batter, it’s made from dough.
The dough goes through a rising process and includes one of the ingredients Todi cares most about: pearl sugar.
As the waffle cooks, that sugar caramelizes inside the hot waffle iron.
That’s what creates the texture Crisp Waffle Company is known for.
Todi wanted the waffles to stay as close as possible to what she remembered from Belgium, so she reached out directly to a baker there.
They talked for hours about the process.
He explained how temperamental the dough could be and how much attention it would take to make it consistently.
Todi still sources key dry ingredients, including flour and pearl sugar, from Belgium.
For her, that isn’t something she wants to compromise on.
Consistency Became the Priority
Todi is extremely particular about consistency.
If someone comes in, loves a waffle, and comes back weeks later, she wants them to have the same experience again.
That sounds simple.
It isn’t.
Humidity affects the dough.
Temperature affects it.
Batch size matters.
Timing matters.
Even learning how to place the dough correctly on the waffle iron takes practice.
For the first several months after opening her original location in St. Armands, Todi was the only person making the dough.
And even as the business grew, she stayed heavily involved in the process.
She still makes the dough herself.
That attention to detail comes naturally from her background.
Before Crisp Waffle Company, Todi earned an accounting degree and spent years working around small and medium sized businesses.
She describes herself as a planner.
Someone who likes structure.
Someone who prepares.
Running a restaurant and food truck taught her something different.
Sometimes you can plan everything and still have to pivot.
Losing Her Job Forced a Decision
Todi always wanted to own a business.
She just didn’t know what it would be.
For years, she followed a more traditional corporate path.
Then, after about 20 years with one company, her job was eliminated.
At first, she was angry.
People told her it might turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to her.
She didn’t feel that way at the time.
But eventually, she gave herself space to think.
She took about a year before deciding what came next.
The first idea was a coffee shop.
She loved coffee and liked the idea of creating a smaller place where people felt taken care of.
Then her husband reminded her about those waffles she had talked about from Belgium.
During the pandemic, she started making them at home.
Friends tried them.
They loved them.
And the idea started becoming clearer.
Coffee and something people couldn’t easily make for themselves at home.
That became Crisp Waffle Company.
From One Shop to a Waffle Bus
After opening the first location, the business kept expanding.
Todi eventually bought a converted school bus and turned it into a Waffle Bus.
That brought a completely different challenge.
At a storefront, everything is already there.
On a food truck, you have to predict what you’re going to need before you leave.
How much dough?
How many toppings?
How busy will the event be?
Will you run out?
Todi laughs about the early days of forgetting something simple, like whipped cream or powdered sugar, and having to figure it out on the fly.
That kind of problem solving didn’t always come naturally to someone who likes to plan everything.
But it became part of learning how to run the business.
Why St. Pete Was Next
After the first year, Todi knew she wanted another location.
She started looking in both St. Pete and Tampa.
The plan was simple: whichever right location came first.
That ended up being Central Avenue in the Grand Central District.
The new Crisp Waffle Company location is at 2414 Central Avenue.
Todi says finding the right commercial space was one of the hardest parts of the expansion.
Central is competitive.
When they found the location, several other people were already interested in it.
They submitted their offer anyway.
And got it.
For Todi, the biggest difference between St. Pete and the more tourist driven environment around St. Armands is the opportunity to build relationships with regular customers.
She wants to know the people walking in.
She wants to see the same faces.
She wants the coffee shop side of the business to feel local.
That’s one reason the St. Pete community immediately stood out to her.
More Than Just Sweet Waffles
Crisp Waffle Company started with the classic waffle, fresh fruit, whipped cream, chocolate, Nutella, and cookie butter.
Then the menu started growing.
There are savory waffles.
Chicken and waffles.
Egg, ham, and cheese waffle sandwiches.
Smoothies.
Açaí bowls.
Coffee drinks.
And at the St. Pete location, Todi also planned to expand the ice cream side of the business with Yoder’s ice cream.
But underneath all of those options is still the same product she obsessed over from the beginning.
The waffle.
For Todi, that consistency matters because she wants people to remember it.
Not just eat it once.
She wants someone to leave, think about it later, and already know what they’re ordering the next time they come back.
That’s the experience she has been trying to recreate since the first time she smelled those waffles in Belgium.
Building Something People Want to Come Back To
Todi’s story isn’t really about waffles.
It’s about what can happen when a plan you had for your life suddenly disappears.
Her corporate job ended.
She could have looked for another one.
Instead, she finally gave herself permission to build the business she had been thinking about for years.
It wasn’t perfectly planned.
The original coffee shop idea changed.
The waffle recipe took work.
The first store brought challenges.
The food truck brought different ones.
And opening another location meant starting another learning curve.
But that’s also what made the story work.
Todi found something different enough to be memorable, cared enough to get the details right, and kept building from there.
Now St. Pete gets to be part of the next chapter.
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