About
Proprietors Eric and Gina Criste
Unlike the other Thai Town Marketplace eateries, Eric and Gina Criste’s GC Crepes is not a new upstart business, but the TTMP is providing the husband-and-wife team their first brick-and-mortar operation. The business started in 2010 operating at the Sunday Melrose Trading Post swap meet in the Fairfax District, and popped up in a few other local farmers’ markets. GC Crepes (named after the initials of their youngest son) makes sweet and savory selections of the popular French pastry with fresh, organic ingredients, as well as Italian-style panini sandwiches. The couple, who lives in the San Fernando Valley, originally hails from Metro Manila, Philippines, where they had their first taste of entrepreneurship while running an import clothing business in the 1990s. Upon immigrating to the United States, Eric worked as a chef at a Los Angeles restaurant, where he honed his cooking skills, as well as having attended cooking school. “We didn’t want to be working for someone else forever,” says Gina, who previously worked an office job in the accounting field. “The Thai Town Marketplace gives businesses like ours a chance to start our first brick-and-mortar. We’ve looked at other options, they were too expensive. This was the best one,” says Gina, who hopes to have their business grow to a franchise, even internationally. “Why not? Dream big!”