“Location, location, location,” is known as the golden rule for real estate and retail. L’Artisan, the friendly neighborhood café and bakery in Wayland Square, has been busy adding strategic locations around the state. In addition to Wayland Square and a franchise in DownCity, there is now a L’Artisan in the center of TF Green, and another in the new Nelson Athletic Complex at Brown University. These aren’t destinations you’d likely head to just for the coffee or pastries, but they are well placed as spots where visitors would like to pick up some of these finer things. “We are still figuring out the Brown location,” says co-founder Rana Daou. The primary location of L’Artisan is a little different – it HAS become a destination, sought after for its special food offerings, coffee and tea, even specially imported wines (it’s a rare, European-esque café that also serves alcohol). But beyond that, there’s something about L’Artisan that draws loyal regulars from the nearby community, despite a large Starbucks sitting just a block away. “A lot of people come here for meetings,” said one patron, who was there waiting for a meeting. The community has found a “third place,” at L’Artisan in Wayland. There’s a casual acceptance of people who want to linger, meet to talk about their Browninspired entrepreneurial efforts, or just hang out with some gentle caffeine reading their favorite paper (if you’re doing that right now, send us a shout out!) L’Artisan staff seem to know a generous portion of their patrons by name. We sat with Daou to talk about the café, and regularly patrons came by to greet her by name or share quick life updates. This doesn’t happen at your average café, and highlights the community vibe that sets L’Artisan apart from the ever-growing “chain store” vibe spreading across the country.
Mike Ryan (Motif): So, you’re going to Brown.
Rana Daou: We’re going to go to Brown, to the Nelson Center. We were approached a few times and asked to take over there, and we said, retail is great, but it just wasn’t the period where it made sense.
MR: Because staffing was difficult? At that time, finding help was a real challenge. Is that getting better?
RD: I feel like it has. So we opened a small place at the airport. That’s been a few months. We have been getting a lot of people not flying – It’s in the arrivals. Obviously, departures would be even better. But some people take their food. They can’t take drinks through security, so they can’t take their coffees, unless they drink them right there. Overall it’s going well so far.
MR: It sounds like you’re picking the locations pretty deliberately. What was attractive to you about being in Brown or being in the airport? Why are you picking those spots?
RD: These are places that approached us. At Brown, we were already catering a lot of the athletic events – a lot of lunch boxes, lunch for different departments. It was getting big, and we did it all from here. Now we can do it there. They like what we do. So they kept coming back. And then they approached us. They’re like, “Why don’t you guys open here? Everybody knows your name, and you know a lot of them, and they have the sports events, the hockey rink.” They have the gym. It’s a challenge. And then we decided we will go for it! We’ll just make the food here. And, okay, everything else too. What will be different about it? Maybe nothing. Like, we have a lot of grab-and-go, but probably won’t have as many other offerings. But we still have alcohol. And in the summer we have people sitting outside, right? Very similar, same items. We have the same items in all our stores. [At Brown] they’re gonna allow us to put some tables outside when the weather gets there.
MR: You get a lot of Brown students and faculty members at this location, too?
RD: We do, but more graduate students.
MR: Do you ever scope out the competition, like at Starbucks sometimes? RD: Not like that, no. I like to support other local businesses. I have a lot of friends that are not in Providence, and we always bring them here for dinners. But coffee places are hard, you know, because it almost looks like I’m spying! I would definitely get a cup of coffee, like at Dunkin’ or something to that extent. But I just feel awkward.
MR: But you go out for evening dining. RD: I mean, I like to cook. I cook a lot. I like a lot of from-scratch recipes, very Mediterranean. Sometimes I invent my own. But we like to eat out as well. [She rattles off a number of locally owned restaurants her family frequents].
MR: When you cook at home and in the café, are those family recipes? [Rana and her husband are of Lebanese descent. They also lived in Montreal before moving to Rhode Island, and all these geographic influences are evident in their menu items.]
RD: My parents were in Montreal. Yeah, my parents were – they’re still – in the food business, the café business. We bring a lot of our favorite recipes back to the café.
MR: You yourselves are still very involved in every aspect of the day-to-day.
RD: More so my husband, like in front of the house, I am sometimes in customer service. We also work in real estate locally. I think at the café we also feel like we have built a community within a community. So a lot of people meet people here.
MR: A customer was saying that before you joined us. RD: I think we built on the community that was already here. What draws people to us also is a noncompromise on quality. If it’s the cheese, or the cold cuts, or the chicken sandwich that’s based on the real chicken breast that we carry. We make everything from scratch. We use carefully selected olive oil, the lemon spice. So everything comes out right.
MR: Does your love of cooking factor into that? RD: Yes, yes. So this is why. We bring a lot of the Mediterranean flavor here. We bring a little bit of the French, because, you know – the bakery. And then it’s also inspired by what we like. We travel a lot. We like to eat. So we try to incorporate that in our offerings. Spice – a lot of spices. Tea.
MR: How did you come up with the name L’Artisan? RD: My husband did. He wanted something more French, and artisan is … well, it is French. He wanted it with a bit of an art feel. [L’Artisan means “the craftsman”] We can make a sandwich that’s gluten-free. We have the bread. Or vegan. A lot of the work is inventory management. If we’re going to have something, it has to be something people want. We’d rather not have it at all than have it sitting there for too long. Sometimes we do seasonal sandwiches, but again, everything is limited. Some things can carry over. Like cookies – they can stay for the next day. But very few.
MR: Did you and your husband meet in RI?
RD: No, we met in Montreal. We were both here in RI, at the same time years earlier, but we never met here.
MR: When you did meet, did you think, “Oh, wow, we must have walked past each other years ago.”
RD: We probably did, but we met at the right time, later. That’s better sometimes.
MR: Are you worried about all the tariff talk that’s going on? Will you have to raise your prices?
RD: We’ve already had to because all the costs are going up. The import tariffs will affect us too. Even our ice cream, it’s from an Italian company. We import cakes made in Italy, the brand is called Bindi. A lot of our ingredients are imported, so we’re a little anxious. It’s hard to bring in a customer. And it’s very easy to lose one. We appreciate, if something went wrong, when somebody comes and tells us. And, of course, we love the positive. As if on cue, a passing customer exclaims, “Wow – it’s really busy in here today! Isn’t that great? It must be good for business.” The L’Artisan customer is rooting for the local business, and he knows the owner. You’re not likely to find that kind of enthusiasm about a line at the counter over at Starbucks. •
