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Le Petit Four is a bakery that is well known for its French baked goods that recently opened in Wellesley on Washington St. It is run by Romain Bernus and his mom, Valérie Coullet, who both moved to the U.S. from France.
The bakery started in Coullet’s home when she began baking to get out of her tech job. Eventually, friends started hearing about her baked goods, and the orders piled up. There were so many orders that they bought a new house with a garage in Needham. The garage was renovated and turned into a central kitchen to continue the newfound bakery.
“It was my mom who started everything,” Bernus said. “She was doing this as a hobby to begin with, but when we got that second house, that’s when she created a business.”
After years of a successful home bakery, Coullet needed to decide whether she wanted to take her bakery into new territory–opening an actual store. Bernus, who was working in tech at the time, quit his job and helped co-found the Le Petit Four Bakery.
The process of opening up the bakery took years. One of the hardest parts was finding the location to open the bakery. They needed an already constructed kitchen to be in the building and they had difficulty finding a landlord that wanted a food establishment. Eventually, they found their location at 380 Washington St. in Wellesley. Once they had their established location, planning, designing and constructing could begin.
“There were many times where we felt like giving up, especially for my mom,” Bernus said.
After the grueling process of opening a bakery, they were ready to welcome people for an opening day event on Dec. 24, 2024. In Bernus’s Youtube video of the opening day, it shows people lined all the way to the other side of the parking lot. They sold out in two and a half hours.
“It was pretty insane,” Bernus said. “We saw roughly 300 to 350 people that day total.”
The bakery didn’t end up having all of the permits needed to stay open, so they shut down after their opening day sale. After acquiring their permit, they were able to host a new opening day on Jan. 21.
“On January 21, 22, 23 and all the way to [Jan. 26], we sold out every single day,” Bernus said. “There were tons of people, roughly 150 people on the weekdays and up to 250 on the weekends.”
One of the reasons the bakery is accumulating so many customers is in part to their marketing strategies. The bakery is an internet viral business with over 1.5 million followers on TikTok, 3,889 followers on Instagram, 2,280 followers on Youtube and 1400 followers on Facebook as of Feb. 12. Bernus uses video series to help draw attention to the bakery. One of their most popular video series is the day to day countdown until the bakery opens, which shows viewers a day in the life of the bakery owners. The bakery also credits their large customer base to their newsletters, which helped them establish a stable community.
“If you can have a social media presence and on top of that, you have an email list, you’re pretty much good to go to build any business you want,” Bernus said.
The bakery offers baked goods that you would find in a traditional French boulangerie, including croissants, pain au chocolat, danishes, baguettes, sandwiches and more.
“It’s as good, if not better, than what you would get in Paris,” Bernus said.
The Le Petit Four staff credit their success to their bakeries’ quality and precision. Bernus explained how the little things make a tremendous difference during the baking process. The bakers take hours to days perfecting both the recipe and their process in creating the baked goods. In addition to taking the time to perfect their baking, they also use certain ingredients such as Beurre d’Isigny St-Mere AOP which is a traditional French butter and flour from Grand Moulins de Paris, both of which their website highlights. Le Petit Four takes the time to inspect the small things and prioritizes the quality of their baked goods which ultimately create an item that they are proud of.
“My mom always says, as long as we keep the quality, we’ll be fine,” Bernus said.
Out of all the baked goods that Le Petit Four offers, the most popular item is their traditional croissants. In just a week, they have sold over a thousand croissants. They are such a hit that Le Petit Four’s current goal is to sell one million croissants. As people walk into the bakery, they can see a Vestaboard counting how many croissants they have currently sold.
In the future, Le Petit Four plans on adding new items to the menu. They also hope to open a second store if possible.
“I think the biggest thing is building a really strong community,” Bernus said.
