Friends who met while working at Kroger are opening a new Macon restaurant

Two friends have opened a sandwich and pastry shop on Vineville Avenue in Macon.

Monique Moye and Felicia George, co-owners of M&M Sandwich and Pastry Shop, became friends while working together at a Kroger grocery store on Zebulon Road.

Moye, an assistant deli bakery manager, had worked for the grocery store for 12 years, most recently in the deli department. George, had worked for the grocery store for 23, most recently as a bakery clerk.

Both found themselves at home for different reasons in March of last year during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I just called her and I was like, ‘Are we going back to work?’ “ Moye said she asked George. “I just came up with the idea: ‘You want to do a restaurant?’

“And then we came up with a sandwich shop because I worked in the deli and I know all about the sandwiches and all that, and she worked in the bakery. So, that’s how we came up with the sandwich and bakery.”

Their last day at Kroger was March 22, 2020.

“August was when we started on this journey to get these doors open,” George said.

They started with research, and got some good advice from Jessica White, a business consultant for the University of Georgia Small Business Development Center’s Macon office. White was recommended to them by the Rev. Henry C. Ficklin, pastor of Mt. Vernon Baptist Church on Pansy Avenue.

Last month, they started with a soft opening of Saturday only and then only Friday and Saturdays. Tuesday, they opened their doors full-time with operating hours of 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

The restaurant is located at 3045 Vineville Ave. in the former Molly’s Cafe location.

Their husbands and other family members help out.

‘Simple, fresh and sweet’

The shop offers up all sorts of deli-style sandwiches using only Boar’s Head meats and cheeses that are sliced fresh for each order.

They’ve got homemade chips, cutting the potatoes and frying them up for a kettle-style crispness. Customers can get the chips plain, or with cheese and bacon.

Their M&M club sandwich already has distinguished itself as a customer favorite, among the most ordered sandwiches on the menu so far.

“That’s the sandwich that everybody has been coming in asking for,” George said. “When they look at the menu, that sandwich is one of the top sellers.”

They make their own desserts, offering cake slices, cookies, cake pops, cinnamon rolls, banana pudding, cannoli and petit fours.

“We’ve been selling out of petit fours every day,” George said.

They also offer kids meals and have a slushy bar, serving up cherry and blueberry slushies.

“Simple, fresh and sweet is our slogan,” George said. “We’re simple because you can come in and get a simple meal.

“Everything is going to be sliced fresh because it’s made to order, and we have the homemade sweets.”

Moye recalled childhood memories of a restaurant her grandmother and some of her grandmother’s sisters once owned and operated on Gray Highway. Her grandmother and aunts also did catering and ran a bakery out of her grandmother’s house.

“It means a lot because this is something that I’ve always wanted to do and now it’s happening because, when I was younger, my grandmother and her sisters they had a restaurant called JJ Migs,” Moye said. “I was able to work in that restaurant as a kid.

“It was like a real fun experience, so, now I’m doing it.”

George also is thrilled with the opening of their sandwich and pastry shop.

“We’re just excited to see what’s going to become of it,” she said.

This story was originally published April 12, 2021 at 5:00 AM.