… We’re looking for people who really want to take a lead and serve,” he said,įor location, they seek sites with a customer population that is 80 percent residential within a three- to five-mile radius and 20 percent commercial. “We want community leaders, people who are there to serve in their community, to know their team. “I’ve been in retail for 35 years and one thing I said is I don’t want store directors,” Moore said. They choose restaurant sites based on the three L’s – leadership, location and lease.įor leadership, they choose “community leaders” to run their locations. “If we’re going to be ‘Maple Street’ why not put something maple-y in it like maple syrup?” he wondered.Īnd just as the community helped Moore and Evans choose recipes and the name, the pair wanted to serve neighborhoods and build relationships. Other suggestions were Maple Way and White Wood Biscuits.Įvans’ “tweak” of adding maple syrup to the signature biscuit was concurrent with the name selection. Just as the pair had “throw-downs” at Moore’s house with friends and family taste-testing food for the menu, they also sampled names. There also are salads and sides, including oatmeal and macaroni and cheese. The menu includes entrees “with a twist,” like a waffle with baked-in asiago cheese, and maybe topped with fried chicken. It made The Food Network.Īnother favorite is The Five and Dime, also a fried chicken breast but with bacon, cheddar cheese and an egg topped with sausage gravy. “Biscuits just seemed like the epitome of a great comfort food item that we could take and we could do lots of unique things with it,” Moore said.Īn example is The Squawking Goat biscuit with fried chicken breast, a fried goat cheese medallion and pepper jelly. Help people, serve others and be a part of the community. Moore, married with three grown children, and Evans, now with four boys ages 11, 8, 3 and a newborn, created a mission. Those are open 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Monday-Saturday. To complement Maple Street’s focus and hours, Moore and Evans launched B Street Eats, a Latin- and South American-inspired restaurant with locations in the Murray Hill neighborhood and in St.

Their 11th is scheduled to open this summer in the Baymeadows area. Since then, they’ve added locations around Jacksonville and in Gainesville, Tallahassee and Chattanooga, Tenn. Moore and Evans opened their first Maple Street Biscuit Co. It’s been “some sweet years since we’ve made that decision,” Evans said. We figured, what do we have to lose?” Evans said.

“She was gracious enough to go along with it. Then come back and if you want to do it, we’ll do it,” Moore said. “You guys talk about it and pray about it for a week. “Hey, I want to do that restaurant idea with you,” he told Moore.Įvans was sent home to consult with his wife.

There was nothing underneath it,” Moore said.Ī few days later, Evans came back. One of Moore’s ideas was a restaurant focused on comfort food with a modern twist built around big, fresh biscuits. Moore shared five ideas for businesses, but didn’t want to leave town to start any of them.Įvans, with two young sons, had a job offer out of town, but he didn’t want to move, either. Moore’s role as a church elder included the human resources insights of working with those who were laid off.Īt a meeting at Starbucks, Evans also asked Moore his plans in light of the corporate acquisition. Evans lost his construction job, and Moore had worked for Winn-Dixie, which was merging with Bi-Lo LLC. It came about because Moore and Evans attended the same church. “This,” he said, “is a recipe for failure.” Oh, yeah, let’s go open a restaurant,” founder Scott Moore recalled. “OK, two guys, no restaurant experience, no culinary background, both without jobs. So did the company, although there was a chance it could have fallen flat. That winning recipe came together by determining the best ingredients and assembling them skillfully.

It’s the maple in the biscuits that give Maple Street Biscuit Co.’s menu staple its panache.Ĭo-founder Gus Evans was experimenting and decided to use maple syrup instead of sugar.

Maple street biscuit