Monique Rose is the restauranteur behind the popular new eatery the Real Milk & Honey Café. Rose has an extensive background in the food and beverage business. The Wisconsin native relocated to Atlanta almost a decade ago where she met her now-fiancee, celebrity Chef Sammy Davis who is best known for his participation in the Award Winning Food Network’s show “CHOPPED.” The two partnered in 2015 and created Sammoe Fud, a boutique catering company specializing in a diverse clientele. In 2016 Rose created Milked, LLC, and with Davis at the menu’s helm, the pair opened their first restaurant Milk & Honey Café, an all-day-brunch-themed bistro in Beltsville, MD.
What led to you opening up The Real Milk and Honey?
The Real Milk & Honey is actually the concept of my business partner and fiancee, Chef Sammy Davis. He actually started it over 10 years ago in Atlanta. Unfortunately, due to a bad partnership, that one didn’t stay open. We had an opportunity to take over an old space [in Beltsville, Maryland] that one of our clients had because they were moving to a bigger space. They said, “Well do you guys want to do something?” In Atlanta, we used to do pop up brunches where we would take over other people’s restaurants and they were really popular. When we had the opportunity in Maryland, we thought why don’t we put Milk & Honey here and the rest has been history. We thought we were opening a small little breakfast place, and it’s just really blossomed and grown into something bigger than either one of us ever imagined.
How do you use social media to market?
That’s 100 percent of our marketing plan. We don’t spend any money on advertising. We really utilize social media for what it is, tell your brand’s story. I think we’ve done a great job over the years of telling that story. There are people that follow us and say hey I remember when you guys [did this or that]. Two and a half years ago, Sammy and I were almost homeless. We were making $500 a week and now over $10 million in growth and revenue. That’s the story people are invested in. So we’re really using social media to tell the brand story and to take people on this ride with us.
What makes the Real Milk & Honey Café special?
I think it’s just our product. We consistently put out great food. There’s really nothing more to it than that. We don’t have all the frills and the extra stuff. We really pay attention to the food, because we consistently want to give people great food every single time. People have a choice of where they spend their money, so we want to make sure that they get their money’s worth when they are coming to Milk & Honey.
