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<\/p>\nIn May, Uber Eats revealed the most popular comfort food orders across Canada, and with that came a surprising revelation: In Quebec, orders from Mr. Puffs\u2014a local chain which sells loukamades, deep-fried dough balls similar to donut holes\u2014beat out poutine as the most ordered comfort food in the province. So what makes Mr. Puffs so successful?<\/p>\n
While poutine’s a ubiquitous menu item\u2014from small casse-cro\u00fbtes to fast-food chains selling their own versions\u2014the success of Mr. Puffs was a little more than unexpected. “I knew I was busy, but to be the most popular item? To surpass a staple like poutine?” says Billy Siounis, the president and founder of Mr. Puffs.<\/p>\n
While it’s hard to imagine how Mr. Puffs’ 19 locations could beat out a food item that’s practically available everywhere, the success of the dessert chain is both surprising and not. Each of the addresses the company holds have all been running throughout the pandemic\u2014albeit with skeleton staff dressed in PPE that only allow five customers inside at a time\u2014but even now, Siounis is continuing to open new locations: A new store’s up and running in Saint-J\u00e9r\u00f4me, and another is on the way in Gatineau at the end of June, and a location in Orlando, Florida is in the works.<\/p>\n
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That’s not the end of it, either: \u201cWe’ve had offers for Dubai, British Columbia, California, New York, but everything\u2019s been put on pause. All the commitments we\u2019ve currently made, we\u2019re going to honor,” Siounis explains. “We\u2019re looking at Vimont, Ville Saint-Laurent, Longueuil, Quebec City, Ch\u00e2teauguay, downtown Montreal, NDG\u2026 Four in Ottawa\u2026 Yeah, we\u2019re growing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Part of the reason why Mr. Puffs was able to batten down its hatches in a time of a complete upheaval of the hospitality industry’s preexisting models has been its early adoption of services like Uber Eats. According to Siounis, his company was the first to offer dessert for delivery. “Everyone orders food, but no one ever orders dessert,” he explains. “My intention initially was to have a fleet of vehicles coming to deliver to your house\u2014because they\u2019re meant to eaten hot and fresh\u2014but back then Uber wasn\u2019t as crazy,” and instead opted for the plug-and-play system it offered. “The evolution of online ordering has evolved to the point where it\u2019s dominant and the way of the future… it took on a whole new revenue stream on its own.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since then, it’s been gangbusters. While sales are down now with none of the usual bumps in orders Mr. Puffs would typically see during weekends\u2014”every day’s a Tuesday,” says Siounis\u2014and sales are down 20%, things are still going strong. With its shift to takeout and delivery, a strong social media presence and charity that saw Siounis driving his food truck around offering free coffee and desserts for frontline workers, the founder has an optimistic vision for the future.<\/p>\n
“I consider Mr. Puffs to be the next McDonald\u2019s of dessert. Whether you\u2019re in China, India, Greece, New York? You can identify with it,” says Siounis. “It speaks every tongue, and on a business level, it\u2019s a model that we\u2019ve proven\u2014even through COVID\u2014to weather the storm. Not everyone can state that.\u201d<\/p>\n
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“My philosophy as a founder is to give back to the community, and support those who support you,” says Mr. Puffs’ founder and president Billy Siounis.Photograph: Courtesy Mr. Puffs.<\/p>\n
It took Siounis two years to develop the company in the first place before embarking on the company’s first foray into the food business in 2004, when he set up a stand at one of Montreal’s Greek festivals. \u201cThe star just aligned,” he says. “Greece won the Euro that summer, Greece hosted the Olympics and Mr. Puffs was born.\u201d <\/p>\n
It’s all the more surprising when considering that while the founder been in the hospitality industry since he was 16\u2014starting as a busboy at Moe\u2019s Deli and Bar on de la Montagne\u2014he hasn’t earned any stripes in a kitchen. “After I signed the contract with the Greek festivals, I went to my mom and said ‘so mom, how do you make loukamades?’ I had sixty days to learn,” Siounis explains. \u201cTo be honest, I have no baking experience, no cooking experience, I just had an idea. I just winged it. It was trial and error.”<\/p>\n
That trial and error led to the creation of something where the sky’s the limit, even though a pandemic is eviscerating the selection of restaurants right now. “50% of stores are going to close, and only the strong will get stronger; multinationals franchises will become stronger, and the restaurant business will become fast casual. That\u2019s it,” Siounis predicts. “In the restaurant business, your margins are so slim to begin with, and you can\u2019t sustain a business with having 50% capacity. Food costs are going up, minimum wage is going up\u2026 It\u2019s not feasible.”<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s sad, because we need that. We all go to work, we\u2019ve all had a hard day; we want to unwind, we want to go to a bar and have a drink, we want to go to a nice restaurant and be pampered. It\u2019s a necessity in society, providing balance to your day.”<\/p>\n
For Mr. Puffs, it’s how it offers comfort food in a time of discomfort. “The least I can do is provide some comfort for others, and it\u2019s a reassurance that this is just a phase, Siounis says. “Life will still go on, we have to just keep going.\u201d Even if his company’s loukamades are fried dough balls\u2014albeit fried dough balls that are half the calories and half the sugar and salt of traditional donut holes, according to the company’s own nutritional analysis\u2014they’re the hottest thing in Quebec right now. (Vegan-friendly too, as theres’ no dairy or eggs in them!)<\/p>\n
“Obviously it\u2019s still fried, so it\u2019s not healthy for you,” Siounis says, “but if you\u2019re gonna cheat, cheat Greek<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From a small food stand to 19 locations and counting in Quebec and beyond\u2014plus plans for expansion\u2014Mr. Puffs is major story of success for Quebec. In May, Uber Eats revealed the most popular comfort food orders across Canada, and with that came a surprising revelation: In Quebec, orders from Mr. Puffs\u2014a local chain which sells […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrpuffs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrpuffs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrpuffs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrpuffs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrpuffs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mrpuffs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrpuffs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrpuffs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrpuffs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrpuffs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}