Meet Kelly Mullen Silvère Leconte | Cafe Owners

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kelly Mullen Silvère Leconte and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kelly Mullen, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
A year ago we were living in France, working completely different jobs, and with a new baby. We worked for other people, tied to a schedule predetermined by someone else and were becoming wrapped up in the daily motions of life. In the past, we had both worked as freelancers and missed the ability to be our own bosses. Add to that the borders closing on and off during Covid 19, I (Kelly) began missing my home country and family. So we began brainstorming; what are our strengths, weaknesses, what have we always wanted to do, what could we do? What would be our next adventure? We decided to look into the restaurant industry because I had about 10’s experience in restaurants prior and Silvère came from a family of entrepreneurs, with experience in restaurants. Although, neither of had ever owned our own restaurant, so we had a lot of work getting started, but we were really excited and still are 9 months later. Every day is different in our cafe and we have met so many different people, doing things we never expected we would a year ago.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I will answer this as Kelly: In high school I thought I was going to be a doctor. In university I studied Biology and was pre-med and interned in my Aunt’s dermatology office. My senior year, just to fill up a few credits I took animal and ocean conservation courses and fell in love. Then a month before my graduation, my older brother passed away unexpectedly and I started really thinking about what I wanted to do. I loved learning about medicine and really wanted to be a doctor, but I didn’t feel like I’d be able to buckle down, study for the MCAT and do another 4 years. But in ocean conservation, I was still just learning about it, did I know enough about it to get a job? As if it were fate, I received an email looking for someone in the ocean conservation field, so I applied, and I got the job. This company would later turn into 4Ocean. It was an awesome experience and I’m happy it happened, but after about a year and a half another loss in the family would lead me to make a split decision and move to France. There I was an au pair for 2 years and worked with a family with 4 kids. It was incredible and I still talk with the family often and it was through that, that Silvère and I met. Once I finished working with the family I stayed in France with Silvère and continued teaching English online while also working towards my personal training certification (in university I played and coached lacrosse and have always had a passion for sports). I was going to start working as a coach sportive, when Covid hit and all the gyms had to close down. So I continued teaching English while waiting, then when the gyms opened up I found out I was pregnant, so once I had our baby I finally became a coach and was doing that until we bought the cafe. Now I run the front end of our cafe and I love it. I love talking with people and hearing about their lives. We are in an office building so we get a lot of the same people and I am familiar with the them and especially their orders (which can be huge for people that have lots of food preferences).

It took me about 10 years and many jobs in very different fields, but finally I found the field I should be in, customer service.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
We are still pretty new to the area, we moved to America less an a year ago, so I always recommend to eat in our cafe! Although on the weekends if we aren’t traveling we try to explore Miami. A couple of our favorite places so far are Santorini and Dolores But You Can Call Me Lolita. I love the water and when I lived in South Florida I spent most of my time at the beach surfing, kayaking, or playing soccer.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
As a team, I think we would have to say each other. Silvère and I are similar yet complete opposites, we each have different strengths and weaknesses that we make up for to compliment each other. I (Kelly) am American, super bubbly, and works directly with clients. Silvère is French, does the cooking, and makes sure we are profitable. I think too, in general we are both adventurous people, but in different ways. I can be impulsive and push Silvère to see that we can do anything if we really want to. While Silvère is more logical and figures out the how we will do anything we want to. We needed each other to come up with this idea and make it happen.

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