Photo on right via T-swirl Crêpe Facebook page.
Signage first went up for T-swirl Crêpe at 1714 Murray Ave. Squirrel Hill in May 2016. Little had changed to the exterior since then, as renovations were underway to the former banking and investments location that had been empty for over five years. But the paper is now off the windows!
The official site summarizes the concept behind T-Swirl Crepe:
The story of T-swirl Crepe starts thousands of miles away on the shores of Japan. The Japanese Crepe borrows from a western concept and modernized it into new level of versatility that you can gobble on the go. Building on this new concept, T-swirl started to research and have perfected the 100% gluten free rice flour batter, to craft a crispy thin chewy layer that embraces all the decadent condiments. T-swirl is synonymous with using the finest ingredients to construct a trendy/artistic crepe that arrives to your hand with incredible speed. We have standardized the process to give you a consistently clean and delicious crepe.The chain has a Pittsburgh connection, as a NBC News story on the "undocumented entrepreneurs" notes:
In 2007, Andy Lin moved out of New York, travelling to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to begin work at a hibachi restaurant where Jerry Lin was already employed, he said. Andy Lin proved a quick study, Jerry Lin recalled, earning the plaudits of the owner who asked him to partner to open another store two years later.
But despite earning more than $10,000 a month, Andy Lin said he began to feel his career plateauing after years of doing the same thing day in, day out.
That's when he noticed the frozen yogurt shop across from his restaurant in Pittsburgh and decided to take a chance, he said.
Hoping to ride the frozen-yogurt wave washing up in cities across the country, Andy Lin returned his share of the restaurant and left at the end of 2010, he said.