A master class in branding from the co-founder of Maman
From wedding planning to founding Maman, Elisa Marshall reveals how to find beauty in the mundane—and other tips for telling your brand story.
Left: photo of the Martha Stewart x Maman fall menu from Maman. Right: photo of the Ardmore, Pennsylvania location from Yelp user Sally L.
Elisa Marshall, co-founder of the bakery-cafe chain Maman, has built a brand that’s instantly recognizable. With a background in fashion, wedding planning, and interior design, Elisa brought her aesthetic sensibilities to Maman’s flagship location in New York City, crafting an atmosphere that evokes both an enchanted garden and the warmth of your mother’s kitchen.
“I hand-sanded every chair to make sure it was perfectly distressed and handpicked every single dish—from everything from my grandmother’s closet to vintage stores. There was so much heart and aesthetic and soul that was poured into it,” she said. “I could tell you a story about every single thing in the space.”
As Maman grew to 44 locations nationwide, its biggest challenge was telling that story at scale. Elisa sometimes faced pushback from investors, who wondered if the mismatched cups and other personal touches were really worth the expense.
But time and again, Maman’s success has proven that the smallest details matter—and even give customers a reason to fall in love with your brand. Customer service and ambiance combine to create what Elisa calls a “multisensory experience for the customer,” which has only grown with new milestones like a cookbook and collaboration with Martha Stewart.
“Whether it’s the packaging from your Uber Eats order [or] the posts that pop up on Instagram… when you see something, you know automatically, ‘That’s Maman,” she said.
No matter where you are in your entrepreneurial journey, Elisa’s advice is to tell an unforgettable brand story: “I think our generation now is looking for beauty in [everyday] things and wanting to take pictures and share it. So let’s give them a reason.”
Below, discover five more reasons to incorporate detail, consistency, and heart in your branding.
1. Create an environment that you crave yourself
Photo of Elisa Marshall by Arianna Tettamanzi
“I came up with this idea of a world that I wanted to crave for myself. I was super passionate about food and beverage. [My husband and business partner Benjamin Sormonte and I] had just moved to New York City at the time, and I found it was a home for so many people. But I didn’t have any nostalgia or [sense] of my family, of a homey kind of environment.
“This is back in 2012, 2013. There were not really too many places that felt like you were at your mom’s house. A lot of people in New York City don’t have dining room tables for four, let alone hosting a big group of people. Sometimes they don’t even have kitchens in their apartments. So we really wanted to kind of create that extension and create that home-away-from-home vibe, that really felt warm and comforting and welcoming.
“That’s really where the concept of Maman came from. The name… means mother in French, so it is a tribute to our moms. Hopefully, it’ll spark a little bit of nostalgia for others as well when they come into the space.”
Eating good food and [drinking] good coffee—we’re in a fortunate era that’s easy. We can do that many places. But I think the consumer (and selfishly, myself) wants more.
— Elisa Marshall, co-founder of Maman
2. Great branding finds beauty in the mundane
“Coming from wedding planning directly before opening up Maman, my attention to detail was very apparent and drove everybody crazy when we first opened. I remember I wanted to have four different [styles of] cups, and all of them were to be different patterns, and no two could be the same in terms of size.
“Of course, we’re opening a small shop, and the minimum orders were in a thousand. So… we had to order like 50,000 cups, when it was obviously much easier and much cheaper just to order one run of one pattern. [My husband was] like, ‘If this doesn’t work out, we are drinking out of these cups for the rest of our lives.’ We actually had stacks of boxes of them in our apartment that we [were] using as a sofa and a side table because we just had so many cups.
“I really strive to create a multisensory experience for the customer. Yes, you can get a great coffee and a fantastic salad and pastry down the street, but why are people coming to us? To me, it’s the little things. It’s the details, it’s the ambiance, it’s the aesthetic, it’s the beauty.
Photo of a Washington, D.C. location from Maman on Yelp
“I wanna make sure when you walk in, you’re greeted with amazing customer service and a great smile. The barista remembers your name and your coffee order from yesterday. The setting reminds you of being in an indoor garden and you’re eating off of a plate that is reminiscent of something that your grandmother had when you were a kid growing up, and the chocolate chip cookie tastes like the one your mom used to make. For me, it’s all those special touchpoints that I really think differentiate us from a lot of the other locations. And to be honest, it has been a huge tribute to our success.”
3. Learn to let go, but always fight for what’s special to you
“[Scaling to 40+ locations] was the biggest challenge, to be honest… We really had to learn what mattered, what resonated with the customer, and then where to standardize.
Photo of dinnerware from Maman on Yelp
“It was a big fight—and still to this day, we all have our beautiful, mismatched china. Honestly, sometimes it’s like a full-time job sourcing these, and I love it. I’m at garage sales every weekend; we go to antique fairs whenever we can. I stop by any value village I see driving down the highway to try and grab as much blue and white as as we can because that’s something I think that is so iconic to the brand.
“A lot of our investors are like, ‘Why are we spending so much time [and money] on this? Can we just not get one set and have all the same dishes?’ It’s something I fight everyone for. I’m like, ‘Absolutely not. While I’m still here, those special details will always be present and part of Maman.’
“But then you look at the chairs, for example. I can’t go vintage shopping and handpick all the special chairs in the space. So we had to standardize that [and] the tables. There was a lot of letting go that I had to do, which wasn’t easy. Probably after store eight or nine, we were able to come up with a nice balance of custom [details] and special vintage pieces, compared to ‘click and click and order.’ It’s the balance that keeps it practical, but then also helps to retain its charm.”
4. Every post or email is an opportunity to tell your story
“We’ve always created that ambiance, that feeling in the stores as I described. So how do you take that experience and deliver it to the consumer elsewhere, whether it’s on Instagram or email blast?
“For us, it’s consistency in terms of branding: everything from fonts to tone of voice to color palettes—making sure everything is desaturated—and then finding beauty in the mundane. Anyone can send out a basic email with text conveying information, but we have an incredible graphic design team and incredible marketing team who really just get it and appreciate and understand… our brand story.
“It won’t be a basic email. It’ll be layered, it’ll be textured, it’ll be faded. It’ll look like it’s a collage with a little piece of tape in the corner. [Branding is about] making sure that story and image is consistent throughout all the touchpoints, whether it’s the packaging you receive from your Uber Eats order, all the way to posts that pop up on Instagram. And when you see something, you know automatically, ‘That’s Maman.’”
5. Your customers are your influencers, so give them a reason to share
“We look at our everyday customer as an influencer. Our moms who come in are who will talk to the other moms and carry their Maman cup to school pick-up—those are our true influencers, and those are the ones who end up driving the traffic and planning the after-school dates and the after-drop-off coffee meetups with their girlfriends.
“Aesthetically, we’ve built something that is so beautiful that people love to share it. [For example, with] the plates we were just talking about… if you have a beautiful, vintage blue and white plate with a cup of coffee that is also blue and white and has a saucer underneath that’s mismatching, you’re gonna take a picture of it and share it. And then that person is then advertising for me for free to all of their network, whether they have a hundred followers or a million followers.
[We treat] every customer like they’re gonna bring us business. We’re very fortunate [that] our business is derived very much on word-of-mouth.
— Elisa Marshall, co-founder of Maman
“As a business owner, you have to realize the importance of that: They are doing free advertising for you. [Be] cautious of those little details that many people overlook. I think our generation now is looking for beauty in those things and wanting to take pictures and share it.”
From the top of Maman’s branding bucket list: a collab with Martha Stewart
“[Martha Stewart] is the ultimate influencer of all—she invented influencers. She was a huge inspiration from a culinary perspective to me… and my idol growing up.
“Looking back at any of the interviews I’ve done in the past 10 years since we opened, when I’ve been asked the question, ‘Who’s your dream dinner guest?’ Martha Stewart. ‘Who’s your dream collaboration partnership?’ Martha Stewart. The answer has always, always been her… Now I’m like: ‘Okay, I can retire now. I’ve done everything I wanted to do. I’m good.’
“What we’re doing now is a year-long collaboration. We work together, alongside both of our chefs, creating a Martha x Maman menu. It’s a combination of items that we love that she puts her twist on. We’ve taken some of her recipes from some of her iconic books and brought them onto our menu. [We’re] really curating a beautiful kind of marriage of the two brands using her culinary expertise and ours.”
These lessons come from an episode of Behind the Review, Yelp & Entrepreneur Media’s weekly podcast. Listen below to hear more from Elisa, or visit the show homepage to learn about the show and find more episodes.