Mae’s Market & Cafe is Open(ish) For Business

Lifestyle
Written By Nicole Jones

Opening a restaurant generally requires a delicate balance of hubris and humility. Opening a restaurant amidst a global pandemic that has decimated your industry in more ways than you thought possible requires optimism. Opening a restaurant seven months pregnant requires grit I didn't even know was possible. 

To be perfectly honest, I'm slapping this article together (way past my deadline, sorry, Leslie) to let you all know that we have unofficially officially open Mae's Market and Cafe.

What does that mean? It means that we are open for business as we are still putting the final touches on the space. We are still stocking market shelves, we are still developing recipes and products for you to enjoy, and we are still tweaking the menu. We are doing it all in front of you out of sheer necessity (remember the aforementioned pregnancy, pandemic, and hubris/humble pendulum?) and from an understanding that the magic of restaurants looks a little different than it did before. 

That doesn't mean that I'm not incredibly proud of what we are offering! It just means that I'm an owner/operator without partners that is doing my very best to give Old Town, where I live, a neighborhood joint that we can all enjoy despite extraordinarily difficult circumstances. 

So, I invite you to come in and say, "hello." Enjoy a deli sandwich on bread from our kitchen or a salad with produce sourced from PA Farmers. Try one of our pastries. Shop the aisles. Drink an espresso. Drink two espressos. I'll continue to invite you back to enjoy new furniture (when it arrives), wine from our cellar (when our ABC is approved), more prepared food items for you to enjoy at home (as we find more and more staff to join our team) and finally to our wine bar, Virginia's Darling in the coming weeks!

I'm so happy to have a store in Old Town, and I'm humbled. So deeply humbled. 

 

Closed on Monday for now

Tuesday - Saturday 7am to 7pm

Sunday 8am to 6pm

www.maesmarketandcafe.com

 

Mae's Market and Cafe is an all-day food market where you can enjoy high quality, made-from-scratch selection of coffee, baked goods, salads, and gourmet sandwiches. For meals enjoyed at home, you'll find an edited grocery and bodega filled with house-prepared food and pantry items, produce, freshly baked bread, charcuterie and cheese, craft beer, wine, and more. 


Nicole Jones

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Head Janitor, Chef, and Proprietor | Modest Bread

Nicole’s cooking style is rooted in, but not limited to, her love of southern biscuits and her diverse culinary upbringing. A military brat, she spent her childhood in the Chicago suburbs enjoying her great-grandmother Mae’s Lithuanian cooking. As a tween, she moved to Paulding County, Ga. where she begrudgingly fell in love with the charmingly perplex small towns of the Deep South. She fondly remembers grubbing on Martin’s biscuits, late-night Waffle House debauchery and cooking with her family. 

After graduating from the University of Georgia, Nicole started a marketing career at an art nonprofit in Atlanta. At 25 years old, she became the youngest executive at the local Atlanta NPR affiliate. Chasing her dreams, she moved to Alexandria, VA where she took a short post in the Whole Foods marketing department. Realizing that cooking had been her true love all along, she began night courses at L’Academie de Cuisine. She completed her apprenticeship at Blue Duck Tavern where she was promoted to a line cook after graduation. From there, Nicole worked as a private chef for busy Washington D.C. executives and their families.

As grown-ups tend to do, Nicole realized something about her childhood -- the best parts were enjoying small town communities, cooking with her great-grandmother and sharing meals with family and friends. She opened Stomping Ground (now Rubia’s) to build a safe and welcoming community around yummy, handmade food from local sources. As her first foray running her own kitchen, she has shamelessly hired better, smarter cooks to fill her kitchen and your bellies. 

Modest Bread is a collection of idiosyncratic neighborhood restaurants devoted to hospitality in Northern Virginia and includes Rubia’s, Bagel Uprising, Mae’s Market & Cafe, and Virginia’s Darling.

www.modestbread.com

2309 Mt Vernon Avenue

Alexandria, VA 22301

703.664.0445

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