Teya Vitu//April 26, 2017
A birthday party and an Idaho friend convinced Logan, Utah, entrepreneurs Nate and Jen Felton to open their second The Waffle Iron restaurant in Ammon, across the street from Idaho Falls.
Their opening date is dictated by the pending arrival of cast iron Krampouz waffle irons ideal for the specialty Liège waffle that they serve.
The Waffle Iron will be in the heart of eastern Idaho’s retail corridor in the same shopping center as Edwards Grand Teton 14 movie theater, just south of the Grand Teton Mall in Idaho Falls.
The Feltons opened their first The Waffle Iron in March 2015.
“This is our second and probably final store,” Nate Felton said. “I want to be really involved. We take a lot of pride in our product. If I remove myself too much from (the Ammon store), the quality could go down.”
The Liège waffle is labor intensive, using a yeast-risen dough dotted with pea-sized pearl sugar rather than the standard, batter-based Brussels waffle. Both derive from Belgium. The Liège waffle started appearing in more American cities since about 2011, including Waffle Me Up in Boise .
Felton plans to make the two-hour drive from Logan for at least a couple days a week to work the Ammon shop.
Felton landed the prime location because a friend owns the Café Sabor next door and mentioned the tenant in the neighboring space wanted to get out of a lease.
“We catered a big birthday party in Idaho Falls last summer,” Felton said. “The response was phenomenal. People were begging us to come here. Back then, I wasn’t even thinking of opening a second store.”