Success Stories: Enjays Creperie

We all dream, and all should have a dream. That’s exactly what both founders of Enjays had. Neil and Jon, graduates from Leeds Metropolitan University in Events Management, had a dream of a pancake company offering great tasting savoury and sweet pancakes to customers at theme parks and tourist destination spots throughout the country.

But before they could do any more with that dream they needed to understand a little more about business. They opened their first pancake shop on the high street in Headingley, Leeds in 2005 to test a model, to get the right ingredients, to make the right recipes and to make sure they were using the right equipment. Essentially they then let customers’ feet, and mouths do the talking. The shop was a huge success, selling well in excess of 30,000 pancakes in year one.

They now faced a tough decision, sell the shop on the high street and reinvest the profits to be able to grow as they always intended away from the high street, or to risk it all expanding in an ultra competitive environment on the high street against the likes of Subway! With the model proven they decided to sell the shop and invested heavily into rolling the business out so more people could enjoy the product in theme parks and visitor attractions essentially as a franchise but without all the annoying franchise fees!

Today, Enjays is the UK’s number one, fastest-growing pancake company. Customers are already enjoying freshly-made Enjays pancakes at locations around the UK including Butlins holiday resorts. And those who’ve chosen to work with the Enjays brand are discovering for themselves that success tastes sweet. As well as savoury.

Oh and our name, that was one of the hardest things to decide on. The founders names are Neil and Jon, their initials are N and J. That then became Enjays. Now you know everything!

Neil and Jon entered the annual Business Concept Competition in 2004 before the launch of the shop. They then went on to represent Leeds Metropolitan University at the Yorkshire Universities “Winner of Winners” business plan competition where they saw of competition from nine other finalists to win the first prize of £4,000. Their aim for the future is to roll out more franchise style outlets across the UK visitor attraction parks.

For more information please visit their website www.enjays.co.uk

Updated August 2008