Cannon Beach’s new Crepe Neptune offers European-style tasty delights

Published 5:00 pm Monday, March 28, 2011

The Manzanita-based couple has been peddling crepes at the Astoria, Tillamook, Manzanita and Cannon Beach farmers markets for three seasons.

“We’ve been living and breathing crepes the last few years,” Yuri Vidal said.

Now, they’re taking their vision a step bigger; the Vidals have hung a Crepe Neptune shingle at Second and Hemlock streets and stand ready to sate the springtime snack pangs of anyone craving a healthy, affordable bite.

The idea for a creperie was born out of the Vidals’ fondest culinary memories.

Maya Vidal can still recall eating crepes in her mother’s kitchen. The ingredients mom used were simple – butter, sugar, jam – and the result was comforting as well as delicious. Yuri Vidal became intimately acquainted with the wonderful world of crepes during time spent traveling in the Brittany region of France, the ancestral home of the thin, filled pancakes. He ate them every day and became friendly with a Frenchman who had sold crepes out of a truck all around the world. Yuri Vidal was inspired by the idea and his friend gladly proffered advice and shared a few recipes.

When the Vidals decided to give it a try themselves, a moveable operation seemed a safe bet. So they purchased griddles and tools from France, cooked up a few recipes, and headed out of doors.

“We wanted to test out the market,” Maya Vidal said. “And over the year’s, we’ve gotten lots of customers.”

In the meantime, the Vidals have also made many close friends and discovered a community dedicated to helping out its own. The support from other vendors and a growing customer base emboldened them to now take their fledgling business to the next level.

The Vidals say they’re beyond excited to have their own brick and mortar shop.

“We’ve made crepes out in all elements, from sunny to sideways rain,” Yuri Vidal said. “It will be nice to be in one place.”

The shop is set up European-style: customers place an order, watch their crepes being made on the round, sizzling griddles and then eat them while standing or take them down to the beach.

“It’s food as performance art,” Maya Vidal said. “And it’s healthy and unique.”

Yuri Vidal hopes the shop and its food will evoke customers’ memories of outdoor eating experiences in Europe.

“We want it like being on the streets of Paris and walking around with your food,” he said. “With the space like it is, we can also keep a farmers-market feel while bringing street food to Cannon Beach.”

The menu features 20 varieties of savory and sweet crepes, and it’s still growing. Classics such as Nutella-banana and ham and cheese, as well as a few Northwest interpretations, are available: The Fort Stevens features smoked salmon lox, cream cheese, scallions, spinach and mustard dill sauce; the Cannon Beach contains proscuitto, chevre, fig and honey.

For the gluten-intolerant, there’s a buckwheat pancake option.

Crepe Neptune also offers coffee and cold beverages and smoothies.