A croffle is croissant dough covered in sugar and baked in a waffle iron. It has the buttery, tender layers of a croissant with the textured nooks and cranny crust of a waffle. The sugar it’s baked in creates a caramelized crust reminiscent of the original Liege waffles. It comes tucked in a piece of folded wax paper, and though your fingers will get sticky, you probably won’t care to notice.
RofleRofle Croffle, located at Tucson Mall, is the first and only U.S. franchise of a popular croffle chain in South Korea. Owners Jun and Jinny Jung contacted the original Korean chain to secure unique franchising rights in the U.S. — if anyone else wants to franchise, they’ll go through the Jungs. Their location in the food court opened last June, but has recently taken off in popularity after an influencer posted about it on social media.
The core of RofleRofle’s menu is its croffles. You can get a plain one for $4.80, but the toppings are worth the extra cost. The fruit toppings stood out most to me: I loved the strawberry and cream one I got, but I’ll come back to try the one with green grapes. Oreo, Lotus cookies (like Speculoos), Nutella and Choco Banana are other options, all set in a generous portion of whipped cream.
The strawberry croffle comes with whipped cream and strawberries and costs $5.90.
Other menu items include a stuffed, fish-shaped croffle that comes with either sweet or savory fillings. The original flavor is choco red bean, but you can also get savory options like ham and cheese. RofleRofle also sells sweet, yogurt smoothies (though they’re more like a froyo milkshake) in fruity flavors like mango. Customers have compared their Rofle Coffee — made with a Korean recipe — to Häagen-Dazs’s coffee ice cream milkshakes.
Jun and Jinny started their franchise experience with the Charleys Cheesesteaks a few units down from RofleRofle. They originally signed contracts for the RofleRofle franchise three years ago, but within months the pandemic disrupted their plans. They had to wait nearly two years to finalize their space at the Tucson Mall and get all their permits approved.
The French croffle comes with a simple sugar coating and costs $4.80.
Now, Jinny has eyes on expanding the franchise near the University of Arizona in the fall. Though at first she was afraid of expanding, "But now I'm thinking, oh we can get it, we can do that, we can attract more people [near the university]."
Her ultimate dream, though, is to open a Korean street food restaurant with her son, who is about to graduate from high school. When he’s in a business program in college, they’ll work together to serve favorites like tteokbokki, ramyun and kimbap. But in the near term, we have a new addition to look forward to this summer at RofleRofle: the shaved ice dessert bingsoo.
RofleRofle Croffle
Location: Tucson Mall, 4500 N. Oracle Road
Hours: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.
For more information, check out their Instagram page.
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