TIME LINE
Bedford Stuyvesant Location History
Clinton Hill Location History
OUR STORY
Maya Congee Café is a neighborhood Asian food and grocery staple, located in Bedford-Stuyvesant & Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. Maya offers non-traditional Asian-American food derived from Chinese culture. It does so by incorporating the background of the owner Layla Chen, a first-generation Chinese-American. Layla created the café from the inspiration of being a new mother to Maya, the namesake of the café, as part of preserving their Chinese heritage.
Our menu features the details of a rich Asian-American cuisine for a modern diet with a focus on balancing flavor and texture. We pride ourselves on the passion for which we create food, and we find joy in meeting and exceeding the needs of our customers. Our vision is to provide a space where people can meet and engage in camaraderie while enjoying a meal together.
Our company culture runs philosophically throughout entire the work flow.
CONSCIOUS EATING : We naturally eat with our eyes and to please our taste buds. We’re looking for a certain aesthetic and a certain flavor. Yet we can not only be eating for our eyes and for the cravings of our tongue. Balance of both are as important as the health aspects. In Chinese culture, we must eat for the well being of our entire body. The ingredients we chose to use, the food we chose to offer on our menu consider these aspects. We lean heavy on ginger, we are heavy on sesame seeds, we lean heavy on vegetables that we can bring a different perspective to. We consider the taste, the texture, the health benefits, the ease of preparing it, and the balance of it all.
EXUDING KINDNESS : To our team members and to our customers, we are collectively taught to be friendlier and more welcoming than the average. New York can be a cold and lonely place. We have love to give and we hope it touches you. We are proud that our workplace is a loving and collaborative one and there are lasting co-working friendships that will likely last a lifetime. We are thankful to attract so many amazing employees and customers since 2017.
WORKING WITH PASSION : The work we do will become routine and eventually become monotonous – if we allow it. As we work, we are intentionally asking ourselves – How can I make this taste better? How can we make our food look better? How can we make this easier? How can we make this more enjoyable? How can we do better? We believe that as we better ourselves, the eventual result in a feeling of pride and confidence only we can build for ourselves in which creates meaningful for our time spent. These skillsets become us everywhere we choose to go. The more passion we find in our work, the better our food will taste.
WORK / LIFE BALANCE : Our entire menu and work flow considers our members as human beings in our current time. As we are everyday working creatives, the food we produce must be able to be made within reason. We will not do painstaking tasks to achieve a certain effect. Instead, we rely on natural abilities and seek to prevent harm (bodies from being overworked, or minds to incur mental stress). If something is too challenging, we will consider another ingredient, or another method. Often times, the tasks become more enjoyable and consequently, it tastes better too.
ENVIRONMENTALLY CONSCIOUS : We will conserve water where we can. We will recycle as much as possible. We will choose products we can use from head to tail. We will streamline as to reduce waste. We are consciously reducing use of plastics. We are proud to say, at the end of each day, we only have one 13 gallon bag of trash. The most “trash” we have are cardboard boxes, which we tie up for recycling.
(Not written with AI, please forgive any errors.)