Cooking crepes

By Sarah Radmer

Feb 9, 2012, 12:00 AM

Crepe Cravers on the Ave, a creperie that opened four months ago, had been a dream of owner Steve Milken's for years. Prior to opening Crepe Cravers, the soft-spoken 33-year-old worked in construction, but he had been thinking about opening a restaurant for a long time. At the age of 5, his mother began teaching him how to cook. "I love the cooking," Milken said. "It just is something I really wanted to do always, and it was just the perfect timing so I had to open this place up." Milken said he is a creative guy and has used that to his advantage. Having wanted to move crepes beyond just a sweet treat, he incorporated crepes into dinner dishes. Milken created pasta dishes - he calls the fettuccine alfredo dish "crepecinni" with a laugh. "There's not much other savory fillings around in other crepe shops, and that's [why] I'm trying to introduce more," he said. "Because people are familiar with sweets, but not a lot of people are familiar and know about a lot of savory fillings." Eleta Wright stopped into Crepe Cravers for the first time with a friend after seeing a movie. She said they happened to park out front and were intrigued. "I kind of grew up with crepes," Wright said. The hardest part of opening a small business for Milken has been the paperwork. He said he was prepared for it, though. "I still thought 'I can do it,' so I went on ahead with it," he said. Interacting with his customers, Milken said, has been one of the most rewarding parts of owning Crepe Cravers. "You have people [wfrom] all over the world; there's everybody here," he said. "Everybody loves the food, and they're nice. They come up and say, 'Thank you for everything.' And they take the pictures of the berry crepes, and that just makes me feel good." For Milken, presentation is important. Crepes like the berry crepes are prepared with slices of fruit, drizzled in chocolate sauce and served with three scoops of ice cream. "I've been told that people eat with their eyes first and then their mouths," Milken said. Paul Hewitt said he was passing through the U-District and was looking for something to eat between appointments. He said he chose Crepe Cravers because they seemed like "authentic crepe preparers." "I didn't want to stop for just fast food," Hewitt said. Milken has made some changes to his hours recently to fill a need he thought people in the area had. Crepe Cravers is now open until 3 a.m. to give students more options during late nights. "[I wanted to] give students a choice, instead of them just going where is open," he said. "It is hard to go out with those limited choices." Another change Milken wants to make is to update his storefront. He said he wants to add a neon sign and clean it up a bit to make it more visible to people on the Ave. The menu is also in flux, with Milken trying to figure out what people do and don't like. With a menu ranging from sweet to savory and vegetarian to meat-filled, Milken said there isn't one crepe that people order most. The best-selling crepe varies day-to-day. But on Saturdays, the best-seller is always the breakfast crepe. "They love the breakfast," Milken said. "Because there's not much breakfast places around, first of all, and the combination of everything, they just really like it." Milken said he is continuing to look at his menu to find things to tweak or to add new creations. "I'm just trying to make it interesting for everybody," he said. "I just want to come up with a whole bunch of things so people don't know what to choose from." Reach reporter Sarah Radmer at features@dailyuw.com.

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