Photos by Kiera Kemppainen
LANSING, Mich.—What started as baking a unicorn cake for the nurse who cared for Erin Witt when she had appendicitis has turned into a waffle business.
Witt runs Brewitt Cafe & Bakery with the help of her mother Donna, who encouraged her custom cake business from the start. Then, when a customer encouraged Erin to open a food truck, Donna Witt was there to help and to give the business a new name.
“Remember that little sign I made, and I put on our mantle?” Donna Witt asked her daughter. “I would just sit there and stare at it and dream. Nobody else ever said anything about it. I didn’t know if they liked it or not, but I put it out there in the world.”
The name was Brewitt, a pun on their last name and the idea of selling coffee. Erin Witt displays a picture of her old baking room, where her mother put the sign, inside Brewitt’s current location.
Before Brewitt was in its current space, the food truck was parked outside of Whole Foods in East Lansing. Originally, paninis were Brewitt’s niche until a break over the winter brought Erin Witt a new idea.
“I was working at a taco place,” Erin said. “There was a lot of downtime, and I didn’t like making paninis. It was boring to me. One day, I was like, ‘Waffles are kind of cool.’ It’s a big canvas where you can do anything. I only wanted to do sweet waffles, but we were asked by a certain event to provide a lunch option. We threw on waffle sandwiches that day, and it became basically our whole menu.”
Erin Witt said Brewitt’s signature waffle sandwich is the Hangover, which features bacon or sausage, eggs, cheese, chipotle aioli and maple syrup on a waffle bun.
In addition to the Hangover sandwich, Brewitt’s menu includes two more waffle sandwiches, a loaded waffle, cookies, chips, hash browns and many beverages. Erin and Donna Witt say their signature drink is homemade cold brew. They have a variety of syrup options and create unique flavor combinations, such as maple cold brew with blueberry cold foam.
Erin also likes to have a rotating menu of sandwiches and loaded waffles each month, which is a breakfast smashburger for the month of May.
“We’ve talked about it here and there for the past few months,” Erin Witt said. “I decided this is the time for the smashburger. Sometimes we don’t think about it as long and get an epiphany.”
While Erin and Donna often come up with ideas for rotating flavors on their own, they love it when their customers bring in ideas.
“We have two customers, Joel and Trip, who like to brainstorm ideas,” Erin said. “I don’t know why. I think they find it fun. They haven’t told me their ideas yet, but they said they have a whole list.”
The community surrounding Brewitt is the reason the business has grown into what it is today. In addition to brainstorming flavors for her, Erin Witt said she bought the food truck and also moved to the Allen Neighborhood Center (ANC) because of customers.
“One of our customers at the food truck was telling us about this place for two years,” she said. “Eventually, we were at the last farmers market at the Capitol, and Jenny, the head of ANC’s farmers market, was there. My mom was like, ‘Girl, just go talk to her.’”
After applying in October and getting licensed for the location, Erin and Donna Witt brought Brewitt to ANC’s Rathbun Accelerator Kitchen. The kitchen is a shared space for a limited number of local food businesses to have a full-time restaurant. Brewitt currently shares the space with Poppa’s Cookbook.
The community that followed Erin from farmers markets to the food truck to the ANC has strongly supported her business.
“We’ve just had so much community support,” Donna Witt said. “People have just been amazing. We’ve had people donate things to us. We had a real estate agency come in and buy a bunch of gift cards, and they said they want to work with us to find a place.”
The support Erin and Donna Witt have received through frequent customers, donated equipment and business opportunities is a true testament to the welcoming environment they create at Brewitt.
Brewitt Cafe & Bakery is open Wednesday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 1615 E. Kalamazoo St.