After discovering churros on a trip abroad, fourth year business student Michael El-Khoury started a hispanic donut business of his own.
In 2017, El-Khoury studied abroad in Australia for a semester. During his time there, he noticed people selling churro bowls served with ice cream.
“I had never heard of a churro and my friends told me to try it out,” said El-Khoury.
When he returned home to Fredericton, El-Khoury made his first churro. “I went ahead and tried it and fell in love,” said El-Khoury. He began experimenting with different recipes and got his friends to taste his creations: “We looked [recipes] up online and tweaked them and found what worked for us.”
Churro Delight opened at the beginning of summer 2018. El-Khoury and his two employees serve churro sticks and churro bowls with ice cream, costing around eight dollars each. The four flavours available are churro delight, oreo delight, fruity delight and butterscotch delight.
El-Khoury runs his business out of a concession trailer, parked on his father’s lot on King Street. “I get free rent from him, that’s pretty low overhead for me,” said El-Khoury. Churro Delight also participated in the Garrison Night Market every Thursday evening.
The churro bowl business is already proving to be a success, says El-Khoury. Churro Delight has several recurring customers who all seem to love the product, which El-Khoury said is “pretty cool”.
Churro Delight hosted a Facebook and Instagram giveaway midway through the summer, awarding winners with free churro sticks for the rest of August. One of the winners had never tried a churro before. “He fell in love with it too,” said El-Khoury.
When asked if his three years of business education helped with this endeavor, El-Khoury replied, “With marketing and [guiding] how to run a business, yes it definitely has.” This is his first attempt at a real business; El-Khoury used to do freelance photography and videography, but Churro Delight presented many new challenges. “This is a full-on business I manage day to day with employees,” said El-Khoury.
El-Khoury hopes to have several business locations throughout the east coast. In the meantime however, he has secured Churro Delight a spot at the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival, where he will be debuting his new ‘apple crumble bowl’ flavour.