Entrepreneur of the Month
The Pancake Man
By Karen Quinn
BILL BROUILLET, cofounder of B&C Telephone, a Spokane-based telecommunications company, had just retired when he got a hankering for pancakes. A lot of pancakes. And when he discovered an Australian-designed gadget that could crank out 200 of his favorite doughy disks in an hour, well, Brouillet was glad he’d hung up the phone for good. He’s now the sole U.S. distributor of the ChefStack.
The microwave-size contraption, which plops down the perfect amount of batter and cooks each pancake in 13 seconds on two hot Teflon conveyer belts, serves up the 97 percent fat-free flapjacks at Tully’s coffee shops around Seattle. Brouillet expects to have 500 ChefStacks in inventory by Christmas, which he expects to sell like, well, hotcakes to convenience stores, coffee houses, and cafeterias around the country. He says, “It’s the greatest thing since the toaster.”
Published: December 2009
