Where Are the Biscuits? Nicole Jones Shares Her Culinary Journey and Shift to Tacos

As I walk into Rubia’s, my eyes dart around the room and land on a woman whose backwards blue baseball hat is holding back the hair from her face. She looks up from her laptop, and at the same time we both say each other’s names: “Nicole? Rainbow?” 

I slide into the booth across from her, our silver mac laptops back-to-back like a classic board game of Battleship, and place my fingers on the keys. “Go ahead, tell me everything…and start from the beginning” I say. And she does.

Nicole Jones at Rubia’s, Photo by Renee Gage Photography

Nicole Jones initially made the move from Atlanta to Alexandria for a romantic love, and while that didn’t work out, she found a greater love – the opportunity to pursue her passion for culinary arts. She took night courses at L’Academie de Cuisine and completed an apprenticeship at Blue Duck Tavern.  Of her early days in Alexandria, she shares that she was puzzled and kept wondering: “Where are the biscuits?” She couldn’t believe there were so few breakfast options, something so easily found in the South. Here it seemed, it was a rare find. 

She was working as a private chef in D.C. when a new opportunity came knocking. She was having a beer at DRP, and the owners of Stomping Ground asked her to come in and do a tasting. “I was living up the hill in Beverly Hills and I wasn’t looking for a new role, but they were trying hard to find a new chef.” She eventually joined their team, and in 2014 came to the realization that she didn’t want to have partners and bought them out, “using every dollar I had.” She bootstrapped the business and has been “grinding ever since.” No founders, no investors, it’s all Nicole Jones.

And she brought the biscuits – for almost nine years to the Stomping Ground. During the pandemic, she also opened Mae’s Market and Virginia's Darling, and became a partner of Bagel Uprising. Four businesses built and nourished by her personal experience, blood, sweat and tears. And now they all fall under her new overarching parent brand – Modest Bread.

“I have a reputation of being difficult,” Nicole shares. “There aren’t a lot of women restaurant owners in this town. I’m a chef. My businesses are wholly personal to who I am, every food we decide to include, every menu update. It’s exhausting…the process…always wondering do people even like this? Do they care?” 

Covid was a rough period, and her staff lost five family members in the first few months. “We did everything– market out in front, delivery, add food items. I crawled my way through those three years. And Alexandria showed up to support. We kept our entire staff and weathered that storm. I’m a very different business owner from that experience.” She also had her first child at the tail end of the pandemic. Adding to these uncertain and chaotic days, she suffered from postpartum depression, from which she emerged due to the care and concern from close friends who recognized what she was experiencing.

Nicole’s daughter just turned two and she shares that, “having a kid changed me on a fundamental level.” Coming out of the pandemic, Stomping Ground “just didn’t feel like home anymore. It had lost its luster. I had lost my passion. So we closed it and reopened it as a taco shop one month later.” And then she breaks into a big smile: “Comfort food is my love language.” 

Hello Rubia’s. The tagline: Not Authentic. Just Really Good Tacos. I wholeheartedly endorse this, as my husband and I camped out in front of Rubia’s before the Del Ray Halloween parade and kept saying, “wow” as we scarfed down our breakfast burritos. When our toddler asked for a bite, we really didn’t want to share…but we caved.

Although it wasn’t intentional, she says the benefits Modest Bread offers (paid vacation, good salaries, maternity leave) has attracted many women to the organization. “It’s a tough biz and to have this group of kickass women decide that they want to spend their days here, to make our corner feel a particular way, that means everything.”

She says she couldn’t do it without her team. “Having some humility, I realize I have limitations as a leader, and I look to hire people that have different skill sets. I also hired a professional career coach (Alexandrian Stephanie Kapsis of The Gathering Project). Coaching is about looking forwards, and it’s really changed my ability to lead from a place of honesty. When I talk to people about building a business, they think you’re supposed to know everything and if you’re doing it right one time, it will stay that way. Not the case – your business is a living, breathing organism and it changes.”

Virginia’s Darling started as a little wine bar inside Mae’s Market. Nicole drew from her own inspiration of what she wanted as a consumer and rattles off a list, “A fresh baguette, a good bottle of wine, a salad for lunch…a bistro dinner (a nice piece of dish and salad for dinner).” They make their own bread, too.

She’s excited about her new monthly Wine Club at Mae’s Market, wines that she personally selects, and happily shares that all the chosen wines are from female-owned businesses and wineries. Her venues are also available to rent out for holiday parties, baby or bridal showers, and offer catering, too. Why cook when you can cater? My own motto anyway. And you can still get those amazing biscuits, now at Mae’s. Seems an ideal treat to add to your Thanksgiving feast.

On being a restaurant owner, Nicole says, “it will be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done. But I literally couldn't be doing anything else.”