Sometimes the unlikely things work...
OLIVES + CHOCOLATE?!
There are flavor combos that make immediate sense, like tomato and basil or peanut butter and jelly. But chocolate and black olives? Yeah, it's a bit crazy.
But isn't it fun whentwo ingredients that sound completely wrong together turn out to compliment each other remarkably well? Our Moroccan Black Olive Chocolate Croissant is our wild child croissant from the very start. Rather than using our traditional croissant dough, the we use a little bit of our sourdough starter and buckwheat to form the basis of the dough. Then we mix in chopped black Beldi olives right into the dough. The olives bring salt and a deep fruitiness, the buckwheat brings a little nuttiness and that all somehow makes the chocolate taste more like chocolate. Then it all gets wrapped up in the same Beurre D'Isigny Butter that we use in our traditional croissants.
It shouldn’t taste like an olive croissant with chocolate added to it. And it doesn’t. The whole thing kind of melds together into something else.
MOROCCAN BLACK OLIVE CHOCOLATE CROISSANT
Hot from the oven, as always.
OPEN EVERY DAY 7a–2p
In a rush? Just give us a call at 619-289-8358 when you arrive and we'll bring your order out to ya - we call it IZOLA Drive By.
Okay, procrastinators. This is your last week to bring us a body. A live one, still. :)
If there’s someone you’ve been meaning to get coffee with, the neighbor you keep saying hello to but don’t actually know, or a friend who somehow still hasn’t been to IZOLA, this is your excuse.
Bring them in before Halloween, buy two coffees, and we’ll give you a hot Signature Croissant to share.
Consider the ice broken.
A SECOND CHANCE
Two things we hear most often from our guests: you love our food, and you love our team. And we’re every bit as proud of the second as we are of the first.
On Friday, I was sitting in our dining room with Bill and Alex from Second Chance, an organization that helps people coming out of incarceration prepare for and find work. We’ve hired a number of their graduates over the years, and I wanted to share with them what we’ve learned about the people who really thrive at IZOLA.
And then something happened that I couldn't have planned better if I'd tried.
One by one, IZOLA team members spotted Bill and Alex and excitedly came over to say hello. They were Second Chance graduates. These are people you know — the people making your food, washing our dishes, welcoming you in, making you laugh, and leading our team.
Their faces lit up when they saw Bill and Alex. And suddenly my job in the meeting became very easy. Instead of trying to describe what makes someone successful at IZOLA, the examples kept walking right up to our table.
I got to brag about them - about the responsibility they’ve taken on, the way they care for their teammates, how much they’ve grown, and how important each of them has become to IZOLA. Watching the pride on everyone’s faces was emotional for me.
People are capable of extraordinary things when someone sees what they can become instead of only where they’ve been.
Programs like Second Chance help create that opportunity. And we’re incredibly lucky to get to be part of what comes next.
If you’ve ever walked out of IZOLA thinking, "There’s something special about the people in that place," you’re part of this story too. Every croissant you enjoy helps us build a place where good people get a chance to show the world what they can do.
That’s something we’re awfully proud of.
—Jenny
P.S. Learn more about Second Chance below. And if their work speaks to you, please consider supporting it.
