Pastry lovers, rejoice! Barefruit Cafe, a local bakery known for its croissant donuts, will be opening its first brick-and-mortar cafe in Arlington’s historic downtown square later this summer. If you’ve never heard of a “croughnut” — a term originally coined by famed pastry chef Dominique Ansel — imagine buttery, flaky layers of a croissant bundled up into decadent, multilayered donut perfection.
Along with a tempting assortment of its staple and seasonal flavors, the cafe will serve coffee and other beverages, offering a cozy, coastal-themed spot for locals to indulge in the sweet hybrid treat. Read on to learn how Barefruit went from a single farmers’ market stand to a Midsouth destination!
Starting a cafe has been a longtime dream for Leilani and Blake, who have four children. The idea began brewing over a decade ago when the couple visited a coffee shop in Honduras. “We were sitting at a bible study with some friends,” Leilani recalls, “and it opened our eyes to the fact that simple little things, like a good cup of coffee or a pastry, can be used as tools to connect people and build relationships and community.”
When the two signed up for a booth at Millington’s Lightfoot Farm Market in October 2023, they just planned to sell coffee from their home espresso machine. But Leilani decided to make a small batch of croughnuts from a recipe she was experimenting with, and they were an immediate hit.
“We sold out within 45 minutes, and at the next market, it was the same,” she says. “By the December market, people were following us as we brought in trays of croughnuts, and they sold out before we could put most of them in our display case.”
Demand grew even more when Leilani posted her croughnuts online. Soon, she was supplying them to several local coffee shops, including JoJo’s Espresso and Congregation Coffee in Germantown, City & State in Midtown, Ethnos Coffee Roasters in Arlington, and Coffee Central in Southaven, MS.
Leilani recruited her brother, Dominic, to help her get the cottage bakery off the ground. And, naturally, her kids taste-tested the new flavors she rolled out each month. Since introducing the novelty pastry to farmers’ markets and coffee shops throughout Memphis, she has been amazed by the buzz it has generated.
“Customers have told us that they drove from as far away as Arkansas and Mississippi for our croughnuts,” Leilani says. “The support and love we have received have been overwhelming. It’s also been encouraging because they take a bit of work to make.”
Croughnuts take a whopping three days to make, with each batch handcrafted using the French method of dough lamination, which involves repeatedly rolling and folding the dough to create its flaky, buttery texture. Each croughnut contains about 144 layers of laminated dough, Leilani says. “It has taken a lot of trial and error to create consistency with the pastry, especially once we started upping our quantities,” she says. “So much goes into the process. It’s like an art form.”
Once the dough is finished, the croughnuts are fried to golden perfection and topped with house-made glazes and creams. Leilani uses high-quality ingredients, from grass-fed butter shipped from New Zealand to pure grapeseed oil and other organic and non-GMO products.
Barefruit Cafe’s rotating menu features more than 50 luscious flavors inspired by the season and food experiences from Leilani and Blake’s travels. The two most popular flavors are vanilla bean creme (infused with Madagascar vanilla bean pastry cream and sprinkled with powdered sugar) and brown butter glaze, which has a rich, nutty taste with a hint of salt. “My favorite is our signature glaze, which is a classic French vanilla glaze,” Leilani says. “After testing all of these different flavors, I keep going back to the simplest ones.”
Barefruit Cafe has also added coffee back to its offerings, sourcing beans from Collierville’s Vinculo Coffee Roasters, which partners with farmers and distributors in Mexico, Nicaragua, and Ethiopia. “We have a passion for coffee and for giving people the opportunity to try coffee from different countries,” Leilani says. “With our storefront, we hope our love for coffee will shine through as much as our croughnuts do.”
Leilani and Blake converted their Volkswagen Vanagon into a coffee and croughnuts truck (fondly referred to as the Barefruit Bus). Still, a brick-and-mortar location has always been in the works. Their storefront is slated to open in late July on Chester Street in Arlington’s square, which the couple chose because “it was the perfect spot for us and lined up with everything we had been praying for,” shares Leilani. While the space is small and the seating is limited, she hopes the move will eventually open the door to expanding Barefruit Cafe.
“Our vision has always been to create a space where families and friends can sit down together and have great conversations over coffee and build community,” she says.
In the meantime, Leilani already feels like she is living her dream. “I love being able to work alongside my husband doing something we love,” she says. “It feels like we are on a date when we get to serve together, and it’s fun bringing our kids into that and introducing them to this world of entrepreneurship.”
Can’t wait to try a croughnut? Follow Barefruit Cafe on Instagram or Facebook to find out where the Barefruit Bus will show up!
**********
To see more local restaurants, check out our Food & Dining archives!
