Meet Mark & Melissa Hollander | Owners of La Belle Vie / The Cafe at Frenchtown

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mark & Melissa Hollander and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mark & Melissa, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
St. Charles, MO is about twenty miles west of Ferguson, Missouri and, as you may recall, was the center of a nationwide discussion on racism in our country in 2014. The impact of this was felt all across our region and country and it truly stirred something inside of my wife and me. We felt strongly that we needed to open or create an environment where people were able to sit across from one another and have difficult but meaningful conversations. We started the search for a location to open a co-op working space, a diner, a coffee shop – SOMETHING. We knew that when we found the location, we would know what to do with it. We put in a letter of intent or a request to lease thirteen different locations and all of them fell through until January of 2020 -more than five years later and right before the COVID pandemic – when we found our location and started to create the space that we knew were called to create.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Both Melissa and I have had long timed careers in banking and finance. Melissa served on the retail/branch side of banking for more than 20 years and I worked on the retail sales and commercial side of banking for 35 years. Melissa got out sooner than I did and started her own bookkeeping business centered on personal financial. This entrepreneurial step allowed her to gain a quicker understanding of how to handle a small business and mix it with our personal life. My background with commercial finance allowed me to better understand the financial steps needed to make a small business successful and bankable. Neither one of us knew anything about restaurant work or how to run or operate something in the food industry so we knew that we had to surround ourselves with knowledgeable people who knew “the business” and we dove in and learned quickly. The challenges of COVID alone allowed us to start more methodically and slowly and it was a blessing to us. We are just trying to be obedient to a calling we knew that we had and to not allow ourselves to get in the way of the beauty of what is happening around us.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
St. Charles, Missouri is a big small town about 25 miles west of downtown St. Louis. We have a lot of things to do in our little city and are close enough to what is happening in St. Louis to take advantage of the big city when it is available. St. Louis has dozens of great small restaurants from El Burro Loco in Central West End to The Mud House Cafe on Cherokee Street to Shamrocks Pub & Grill in St. Peters. All are a must stop when you are coming through town. The Magic House, Botanical Gardens, a Cardinal or Blues Game, a stroll down Main Street St. Charles at Christmas time is magical, City Museum, Art Hill in Forest Park plus The Loop on Delmar – just a few of our most favorite places to hang out.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Definitely our immediate family members. We have two daughters who have NEVER wavered in their support of us – Katie is our oldest and Maggie is our youngest. Katie is 39, married to our son-in-law, Chris, and the mother of our two grandkids – Blake (10) and Jacob (6). Maggie is 30 and has a boyfriend named Cody. The girls have painted, swept floors, bussed tables, washed dishes, processed payroll, made bread and helped run the cash register. They have always been there to show love, support and lend a helping hand. Our parents have also been supportive, as well. Although, I think they believed that we were crazy to want to open a restaurant right in the middle of COVID, they worry about us and love us unconditionally. Melissa’s parents are Roy and Bonzie Hinton and my Mom is Barbara Hollander.

Website: labelleviefrenchtown.com

Instagram: @labellevie_frenchtown

Facebook: @labelleviefrenchtown