Archive for May, 2010

Our macarons are now available for retail sales at the Viktor Benes Bakery at Gelsons stores in Westlake Village and Marina del Rey.

Chef Xuan and I went to the Westlake Village Gelsons store on a Saturday towards the end of April and did a sampling/demo of our macarons.  Boy, was it  success!  Was it because it was FREE bite-sized macarons or was it because they were yummy?  I would say both!  Of course, free makes everything tastes better, but we did generate quite a bit of sales for the Viktor Benes bakery that Saturday afternoon.  The sampling was from 11 AM - 1 PM, and approximately 400 macarons were gone.  Some customers were diet-conscious and only chose their best flavor, while others took one of each flavor.  There was even one customer that took one of each and placed them in a cup, ordered a cup of joe and sat down and enjoy her macarons and coffee.  Yeah … that’s what I am talking about … I would do the same.

Below is our sampling counter right directly in front of the Gelsons entrance.

Sampling Counter at Gelsons

Another view of the counter:

A close up of the sign and our retail macaron box:

Customers can purchase our 12 piece retail gift box as shown above or by individual macarons as shown below from the pastry display case.  Oops … one of the tags in the display case has 2 “o” in macarons, instead of 1!  Will ask VB to correct it. 

After the sampling/demo event ended, Chef Xuan and VB owner Mona Provencher was all smiles for this Kodak moment.  Mona is the owner of both the Viktor Benes bakery in the Gelsons stores in Westlake Village and Marina del Rey.  Thanks Mona for bringing in XT Patisserie’s macarons into Gelsons !!!  Is that a Lenôtre logo that I see on Chef Xuan’s chef coat?  Yes, it sure is.  Chef Xuan was trained at Lenôtre and then also later worked there.

Chef Xuan followed up with another macaron sampling at the Gelsons store in Marina del Rey on the Saturday of Mother’s Day weekend.  That was also a successful sampling event.   Much thanks to Mona and her staff at both the VB locations.

We are working to have our macarons available at more Gelsons stores.  Please stay tuned …   In the meantime, come pick up some of our macarons at the Viktor Benes Bakery at Gelsons Westlake Village and Gelsons Marina del Rey.