'Never give up, rethink and try': Chattanooga restaurateur says adapting is key to staying in business, growing

Staff Photo by Matt Hamilton / Milk and Honey co-owner Mike Monen at Market South in Chattanooga on Wednesday, March 10, 2021.
Staff Photo by Matt Hamilton / Milk and Honey co-owner Mike Monen at Market South in Chattanooga on Wednesday, March 10, 2021.

There is an old adage that says nobody likes to be told their kid has big ears, and for many owners, opening a restaurant is like giving birth to a child. They feel a passion and love for everything from the name to the concept to the recipes and the decor. Hearing any criticism can sting.

But, unless you land on a concept and menu that hits home with customers right away, adapting, changing and listening to those criticisms can be the difference between success and failure.

Mike and Taylor Monen have learned that from all sides during their almost 13 years of operating multiple eateries together in Chattanooga and Nashville. They actually worked together at Sticky Fingers, which he co-owned, before getting married, so their restaurant experience goes back even further.

They currently own and operate Community Pie, Urban Stack, Taco Mamacita and Hi-Fi Clyde's in Chattanooga, and they just opened a Milk & Honey in the Market South space, which they also opened in 2019. They are also completely remodeling and enlarging a second Milk & Honey in the Town & Country property on the North Shore.

The Monen Family Restaurant Group also owns Taco Mamacita, Hi-Fi Clyde's and Milk & Honey locations in Nashville.

By most standards, their concepts have been successes, but Mike Monen said they have had to grow and tweak, and learn from their customers over the years in some cases.

"Never give up, rethink and try," Monen said. "Sometimes that's the way opening a new business works. We've been lucky that some of our concepts were home runs, but this is not an easy business. Sometimes you have to sit back and reflect and see what people want."

It's not uncommon for restaurateurs to find a concept or food that works elsewhere and want to introduce it here, and that is what happened with Community Pie. Monen traveled to San Francisco, where the particular type of pie is popular to learn all he could about the traditional Neapolitan or Naples-style pie, with its thin crust and simple but specific tomato and mozzarella cheese ingredients.

The Chattanooga restaurant scene is littered with failed restaurants that closed because owners tried to introduce a new concept to the market only to find people here didn't really want it. The ones who made it were able to adapt. Monen said while many Chattanoogans liked the Neapolitan pies, "most want their pizza by the slice.

"When we opened Community Pie," he said, "we were really excited, but what we do today is not what we did then.

"Customers came and some loved it and some did not. What they were used to was pizza by the slice, and we started to listen to our customers and people wanted slices for lunch. Then we added lasagna and salads and sandwiches."

They even took the Neapolitan off the menu for a couple weeks, "and got more complaints than we did for not having slices."

photo Staff Photo by Matt Hamilton / Sylvia Zdunek makes a coffee drink at the new Milk and Honey location at Market South in Chattanooga on Wednesday, March 10, 2021.

Milk & Honey represents one of their home runs, however.

"That's Taylor's brainchild," Mike said.

Taylor Monen said Milk & Honey's evolution is almost the opposite of Community Pie's, because it was a big hit from the beginning.

"When we opened Milk & Honey, it turned into something we never intended," she said. "It was a happy accident."

She said she became interested in the process of making gelato and thought it would be a nice, small side business, but it grew and grew. They first opened a 1,ooo-square-foot space near their Taco Mamacita location on North Shore serving gelato, but soon realized that not only did people like it, it took more space to make it than they thought. So, they moved into a 2,000-square-foot space nearby and added coffee.

"With coffee, people think breakfast," Mike said, "so we added that and ran out of room there too, pretty quick. It became so popular we had lines out the door."

Taylor said it was primarily a "grab-and-go concept with a limited menu, which she said doesn't make a lot of money.

So as space has become available, they are now expanding into what will be a 4,500-square-foot, full-service restaurant.

"It will be much more like the Nashville location, which is 5,500 square feet," he said.

The work will take close to five months to complete, he added.

Taylor said the couple never wanted to own a chain of restaurants with the same concept and that their growth stems more from having a successful employee training program than a desire to simply open more eateries.

"We both started at entry-level positions and were allowed to grow," she said.

"After we married in 2008, we wanted to create a company with a culture that shows we've grown. With our training program, we ended up with all of these incredibly talented and creative people with nowhere to go. We never set out to grow, but we had people ready to run their own places."

She said the staff members who go on to run other locations are partners who share in the profits.

"They are empowered to run their own stores," she said. "If our staff is having fun and giving their best to customers, then that is the best."

She said having such a staff is what has gotten them through the pandemic.

"They have stuck with us and we are so grateful. People give us a lot of credit, but this is an amazing group we have."

Both Mike and Taylor said they are still tweaking their concepts for the 15,000-square-foot Market South, which now has Milk & Honey, Five Wits kitchen and bar and Chow Main, an Asian wok concept. The Milk & Honey store at Market South is a "scaled down version of what the North Shore one can be," Taylor said, with a smaller menu.

It will serve coffee, espresso, gelato, breakfast and lunch items.

Originally conceived as a food hall with several eateries and a central dining area, Mike said COVID-19 forced them to rethink the plan for Market South entirely.

"When the pandemic happened, all of our concepts became very challenging," he said. "We were very proud of the Indian food we were serving, but there were so many ingredients and it took so much prep because it was super complex, so we scaled down and focused on Chow Main and pop-up concepts."

Both said they have big plans for Market South in the coming months.

"We are still trying to figure out what we will do when we fully reopen," she said.

Being willing to adapt has been the key, she added.

"People's perception of success is funny. The more successful we are, the more humbled we are. We've learned a lot over the last 13 or 14 years and it doesn't get any easier.

"I think our story is that we've had to be adaptable and resourceful."

Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.

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