The first Maman cafe, located in a former machinery warehouse-turned-poster store in New York City’s SoHo, aimed to capture the cozy, familial atmosphere of a home kitchen. Elisa Marshall and her now-husband Ben Sormonte, a French native who always dreamed of opening a cafe, founded the French-inspired cafe, bakery, event space and catering company in 2014 and have created 37-unit-and-counting chain, though Marshall dislikes that word. “We never want to feel that we’re just a copy-and-paste location,” she said. A big part of Maman’s success in creating neighborhood cafes, she said, is landlords who will work with the brand.

To gain hands-on hospitality experience, former interior decorator and caterer Marshall and former corporate lawyer Sormonte quit their jobs in 2012 and spent two years running a beach club in Ibiza. In 2014, the couple relocated to New York City to pursue the concept of Maman, which means “mother” in French. They enlisted their friend chef Armand Arnal of the Michelin-starred La Chassagnette to help create a French country menu, offering items like focaccia, brioche, and chickpea galettes. To make the place feel even more authentic, the duo hung real family photos on the wall and served coffee on china that belonged to Sormonte’s grandmother.

Maman enjoyed a steady stream of customers from the start, but demand exploded when Maman’s cookies made Oprah’s Favorite Things 2017 list. Maman today boasts 37 locations in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ontario, Quebec and Washington, D.C.

At ICSC LAS VEGAS in May, Marshall talked to Carren Ballenger Coston — a past ICSC trustee and national strategy adviser for retail for Newmark company Open Realty Advisors — about Maman’s beginnings, what it looks for in locations, and its expansion plans. A version of that conversation, edited by ICSC Small Business Center contributing editor Rebecca Meiser, appears below.

How did the idea for Maman start?

I had a nine-to-five job in PR and marketing. I did wedding planning on weekends and had a side hustle catering sweets along with interior decorating, all of which were things I loved and was so passionate about. When looking for a career in my early 20s, nothing spoke to me, as I wanted a job that encompassed everything I loved. I wanted to create a world for myself where I could combine all my passions: food, baking, coffee, interior design, branding, events, friends and family. There was really no job like this that I could find, so I knew I had to invent it.

Can you expand on the Maman concept?

My husband is French. We really specialize in fusion between French and American cuisine. Think: traditional French techniques mixed with an American flavor palette. Some of our best-selling items are our homemade Oreos, made with a salty chocolate cookie and a white chocolate ganache. We’re known for our coffee. The reason we named it Maman was really in tribute to our moms. I am not at all a professionally trained chef, nor is my husband. We are mom-trained chefs. We just wanted to create a warm and welcoming space that really felt like home. Especially being in a city like New York that is not home for so many, we wanted to create a space that kind of embodied that warm, intimate atmosphere of your childhood, a place with a dining room table, for instance, where you could host 10 friends for a baby shower or where you could meet for brunch on a weekend at a place that wasn’t trying too hard to be cool. At that time in New York, a lot of the hip cafes were industrial and super sterile.

How did you pick your first location, in SoHo?

We were fortunate enough to be friends with our landlord. It was a small, independent New York landlord whose family had owned the building for generations. One day, I pitched him this crazy dream of mine, and he said: “I love it. I want you to walk around the block and find me your favorite place that I have.” The space I loved was a poster shop [and before that a machinery warehouse]. It was beautiful. We wanted something with wood bones, and we were very fortunate that his space had vintage wood floors, exposed brick walls and original tin ceilings. It turned out their lease was up the next month. The landlord told us if we wanted the space, it was ours. He was just a wonderful landlord. He helped us out with the improvements of the space. He really believed in us.

What were some of the challenges you faced going from one location to many, and how have you navigated those?

A lot of your success depends on your relationship with your landlord. When working with landlords, especially at the beginning, it’s so important that you have the support from them, the free rent from them, the [tenant-improvement dollars] from them. We really invested everything we had into our spaces, and it’s not cheap. The equipment is so costly, and so are things like the security deposit. In our first location, we got a lot of support from our landlord. In our second location, we got no support. In our third location, we got no support. And then we learned our lesson about picking our landlords a little more wisely and asking better questions.

You started with one store. And now you’re on your 37th. Did your layout and preferences change over the different openings?

The design and the layout that we did for store No. 1 versus what we are doing today is very, very different. We learned, for instance, you shouldn’t place the refrigerators directly under the barista station, which is right next to the cash register. We also learned about spaces. We learned that finding second-generation locations was really important and really helped in the cost-saving element. So a lot of logistic learnings as you go.

What are some of the strategies you’ve employed to differentiate yourself?  How did you approach that when you were thinking about the brand and expansion plans?

In a city like New York, on every single block where there is a Maman, there’s another amazing place with coffee and there’s another amazing place with food. That’s not only New York City; it’s every big city. For me, Maman is all about building a brand that speaks to people, that touches people in a different way, whether you’re eating something that’s reminiscent of something your grandmother made, whether you’re sipping out of a blue and white vintage mismatched china cup that reminds you of a set of china that your mother used to have. Maman is all about creating that multisensory environment and being more than just good food. Part of that is also having fabulous service when you come in. It’s very important, for instance, that my barista knows your name in the morning. She knows what coffee you like. She knows you had your birthday last weekend. That’s all part of creating the feel, the vibe, the comfort of walking into our cafe. It’s what differentiates us.

When you think about a new space, what are you looking for?

We always try to find older, more charming spaces: the places with the exposed brick walls and beautiful wooden floors. Those are things that are impossible to re-create. Unfortunately — well, not unfortunately because they have turned out beautiful, but unfortunately from a financial perspective — we have gotten a few new buildouts that have been concrete boxes to start with. How do you create warmth in there? How do you create that magic? You have to really think: What can I do to create a warm, welcoming, cozy, homey vibe in a concrete jungle with an exposed ceiling, concrete walls and concrete floors? Those spaces are definitely more challenging. They’re more costly, too, given the soul of our brand and what we do.

How do you choose your locations?

The demographic of the neighborhood is very important. We offer breakfast, brunch and lunch. We want to make sure that we are near nine-to-five customers who work nearby, so we are looking to make sure there are people who would come in in the morning, grab their coffee and their breakfast; people who would order lunch on the app and come to us to pick it up; people who are stopping by on their way home from work for a cookie and a drink. But we also need to be where families are. We attract, for instance, that French customer who’s coming with their families for mimosas and a big festive brunch on the weekend. So the demographic in the mix of the community for us is really important: a nice balance of commercial, residential and tourists. Really, we’re looking for good bones and good demographics.

When you think about expanding into new markets, what drives your decision?

Our model is based off of a commissary kitchen. We have commissary kitchens that do all of our production. We’ve been using that model for cost and quality-control purposes. In New York, D.C. and Miami, we have large commissaries where all of our production takes place. That means we have one head baker instead of 34 head bakers, and by cutting back on salaries, we invest in heavy equipment in one location as opposed to all locations. For instance, we make all of our cookie dough in our commissary, and then we have drivers who dispatch it out every single morning, every single evening to all the various locations and then we’re cooking on-site. If I bake my cookie recipe and you bake my cookie recipe and we all follow the exact same recipe, I promise you, they’re still not going to taste the same. We really want to ensure that there’s consistency.

Based on that model, we are looking for markets where we can have multiple locations because it is such a heavy investment with one of those large kitchens. Also, we like our commissary to not be a ghost kitchen, to not be in a warehouse. The transparency that we have with our customers is so important to our brand, so we have windows into our kitchens. People love seeing it. We host workshops all the time there. So in new [markets], we look for a large commissary space. Then from there, we branch out. Realistically, a two-hour driving radius would be our zone in terms of development. We want to make sure that we find cities where we can build out a commissary and have the support of five or 10 locations within the area.

At our most recent expansion, which is in Miami, we opened our first commissary in Wynwood and from there, we are going all the way up to West Palm. We have six openings coming up in the next year.

Potentially Dallas is going to be our next project. We’re very excited about that location. We feel it’s the type of city that has multiple great neighborhoods but close enough in terms of proximity for our model.

What has been challenging as you’ve expanded into multiple locations?

One of the biggest struggles is trying to keep the charm and the authenticity as we grow. I hate being called a chain. Of course, on the books, on the back end, we’d love to be a great, big chain, but from the feeling you get when you walk into Maman, none of them are cookie-cutter, I hope. We never want to feel that we’re just a copy-and-paste location. So we’ve learned success by really working with the landlord to make sure that we’re creating that authenticity, and even though we’re at a chain level of locations, it still feels like your neighborhood coffee shop and cafe.