A dream only possible with the help of many. This space is dedicated to so many of you who have inspired us to be more.
~2017
Originally a farm-to-table eatery named Bed Stuy Provisions, we evolved to become Maya Congee Cafe in 2017, after the birth of Maya, the child namesake. After a year of “trying” I knew I couldn’t keep sane with a line of people wanting fried egg sandwiches with pork belly. We did not have proper ventilation and frankly, I was tired of smelling like a walking piece of bacon. I remembered how much I loved the food at ScratchBREAD and thought they had such a genius offering. So I was incredibly relieved when Matthew Tilden agreed to help assess and create a menu with the limitations we had. In 2018, we arrived at the theme of serving congee (versus his famous grits!) topped with crave-able, unique Asian American blend of both worlds. Matthew was heaven sent. He has such a big heart, a super serious work ethic, and is insanely talented in creating magical flavors. We had argued about the century egg, but I insisted, because it was my favorite congee topping. I didn’t even care if no one ordered it, because I would want to be eating it with the congee. Honestly though, I was scared as shit. The day before we launched the menu, I was at Deluxe Market on Elizabeth St, and I stood before a large quart of congee for $2.75. The congee was dirt cheap and it was so good (to Chinese traditional congee standards). How were we going to sell a bowl of ours for $15? LOL. Seven years later, I wholeheartedly believe our congee is definitely worth that and beyond.
Matthew now operates 7 Grain Army, a G/F bakery in Williamsburg. Needless to say, the menu is soooo good! Definitely get his Jamu drink.
The Power of Branding
As with all businesses, there are ups and downs. The only thing we can hope for is a healthy average. Being in a neighborhood where the neighbors head to work in Manhattan, we were dead during the weekdays and packed during the weekends. By Monday, our fridge would be empty and it was so much pressure to replenish every topping. I hated the emotional + physical cycle of it, it took a mental toll on me. In those early days, I was using a menu template my friend Hang Xu had created for me. It worked well, but I knew I needed more branding. So when my friend Marites Algones offered to help me re-brand by creating a logo, a menu and website, I was ecstatic! I knew it would change the trajectory of my business. She already had a full time job, so we would meet evenings or weekends to brainstorm, then order/make dinner, and drank a ton of wine. Maya and I had so much fun sleeping over a few times. Our friend Cady Lang would join often and helped fine tune the wording as she’s a Times writer. It was blast creating something slowly over time while enjoying our friendship. It took about 6 months when we arrived at the final product. Marites single-handedly put Maya Congee Cafe on the map of the NY food scene. She coined the name “Congee Cafe” and this placed a strong position in our customers mind. As for the hand drawn illustrations of our sandwich, ginger, garlic and drinks, these came from our customer Leanne Gan (gan_doodles). She had coincidentally reached out to let us know she was a fan of our shop and offered her help. Our original website (sorry, not this simple one!), was developed by a long time friend Rishi Sharma. (Rishi had helped me develop a site for my previous Swimwear venture with my sister back in the days).
When I prayed for stability, this was the first step. We were creating a firm place in the market, and customers were coming to us more regularly throughout the week.
To this day, the menu design gets a ton of compliments from our customers. I am so thankful to know such talented friends.
Gate Mural / 2020
Our blue skies metal gate is a mural painted by the infamous muralist Vincent Ballantine. I met Vincent when he was spraying Fulton Bikes’ gate during covid. I was so amazed with his talent, I stopped to give him a compliment. When I told him I have a shop and I would love a mural on my gate, he asked me where it is, and what it was called. I told him, “It’s down the street, at Maya’s.” He excitedly responded, “That’s my daughter’s name! Okay, I have to do this.” Vincent gave me a “covid” rate for his work. When we were tossing ideas around, I arrived at the conclusion that I wanted to visually give back to the community. The Bed Stuy neighborhood has strong Carribbean roots that is quickly gentrifying. As someone who has lived in Honolulu for 20years, I knew that blue skies and palm trees were something of nostalgia for those who migrated from the island life. My intention was to give to our original neighbors an uplifting feeling of hope, of nostalgia, of positivity every time they passed by. Even though the mural is not “on brand” with our food, the feeling of nature and joy certainly lends to the process when making food. I feel it every time I arrive to open shop. Thank you so much Vincent for your talent!
Vincent also hand painted the red Maya logo across the top.
Outdoor Cabana / 2020
When the city offered free outdoor street space to ease Covid’s social distancing rules, we were paired with Yumiko Matsubara from ____design__ to help design and meet city regulations. Yumiko is a Harvard graduate, originally from Japan so I loved her point of view of a street eating space. We arrived at a theme of an East Meets West Street Temple style structure. With the help of my friend Scott Campbell, we did market research by eating at and studying other structures we loved around the city. Scott is an events project manager so he was a great sounding board on legalities, safety and material sourcing. When we were ready to build, I was super lucky to get in contact with Rachel of ChaosBuilt, LLC who had helped several Chinatown businesses build their structures. She charged me at cost to pay her team who were delightful doing the job. It’s certainly a rare case, haha.
Unfortunately, we do not have the resources or manpower to license and store our outdoor structure during off season. In August 2024, we do plan on demolishing it. If anyone has ideas for better us of this, please let us know.
