Chef Fran Mosley

Chef Fran Mosley

Owner/Operator: The Chef Fran Age: 44 Cuisine: It's All About the Sauce

At eight years old and a daddy's girl, Fran baked her first cake at her dad's request. "He said if you can bake me a cake, it'll show me that you love me. After baking the strawberry cake, Fran says, "He eats the cake like it's the best thing he ever tasted before. The cake had to be the most horrible confection anybody could ever make". However, he taught the lesson if you love people, then you'll cook for them.

Before there was a Chef Fran, there was a woman with a degree in business management with a customer service background.

Standing in the kitchen, she wondered what she could do that would be most rewarding. Fran realized she was standing in her happy place. The kitchen. "This is where my boys gather around the kitchen island, and we turn on the music and dance. I have a glass of wine, and it's beautiful when they eat and enjoy the food, she says.

In 2011, Fran decided to go for it! “I started making mini Bundt cakes to bring to the office every Friday.” That graduated into Fran thinking more about business. After getting her business license and business plan, Fran petitions the bank for a loan. "In my mind, Haute Monde is a restaurant, dominated by a runway. Models

with black t-shirts on with white Haute Monde letters in the front was a fabulous idea", says Fran. I'm thinking dessert lounge, gourmet coffees, and fashion". The whole idea was to have a fashion show while customers eat with good music playing in the background.

The bank rejected the loan request as Fran did not have proof of concept. They advised her to start her business then come back once she has, as Fran calls it, "some skin in the game." Then they would reconsider. Fran remembered that it was precisely what she needed to hear because the work to be done with starting a business requires a level of sacrifice and persistence.

Without any other options Fran decided to make a mobile Dessert Bar. Fran went to Home Depot, purchased a few 2x4's and wrapped them in silver cake board paper, and made her tables look like runways of desserts.

To Fran's astonishment, the dessert bars were a hit. A customer asked Fran to do a dessert bar for her daughter's birthday, and that was the takeoff of Fran's dessert business. With business seemingly going well, Fran had one problem. Pricing. “It is important to learn cost vs. profit; what is your supply cost and how much you would like to earn," she said.

In September of 2012, Fran had to make a life decision, move to California for work or lose her job. Married with four children, Fran did not want to uproot her family and move to California. She decided to go full force with the business and gave herself six months to get it off the ground. It was a hard six months, but she sustained the business by hosting tastings, events, and weddings.

She started early in the morning baking her pastries, and she would go to the parking lots of Kroger and Burlington Coat Factory and solicit people to taste her desserts. She would give them a card and a free dessert. "I’d ask people just to taste it, and if you decide you want me to do it for you, here's my card," says Fran. Although Fran never got any customers from the brick-and-mortar businesses, her customers came from the parking lots.

The first significant break that helped her to blossom was Bernal Smith. Although Smith passed in 2017, the visionary leader, publisher, multi-media business owner, servant leader was instrumental in entrepreneurship paths to many, especially Fran.

Smith created the Best In Black Awards and asked Fran to cater the VIP section's dessert bar. Afterward, he allowed Fran to use his Tri-State Building for tastings at no charge!

Fran met a limousine driver at one of her dessert tastings, dropping someone off, and the driver asked for a business card. That card landed in Mary Peluso's hand, the wife of Memphis Grizzly NBA player Mike Conley. Mary was preparing to host for the holidays and was in search of a caterer. In year one, Fran was on the rise. "I became a household Grizzly caterer at that point," she says.

“I have always taught, in a sea of other people doing the same thing as you, what makes you different?” says Fran. “ I started doing desserts when Cupcakes were a craze so I carved out a niche in doing Savory Cupcakes.” An entrée in a cupcake caught the eye of the Food Network, and it made headlines. The Savory Cupcake line came to be Fran's specialty.

A year later her vision to open a restaurant became a reality. Just an open space on Madison and Avalon, Fran would need to build out her dream restaurant. Receiving seed money from her husband at the time, H.M.

Dessert Lounge was established on November 6, 2015. The runways came back full circle. Fran had a center piece table custom-made into a runway and the restaurant was literally on ready, set, and go. Fran could not bake enough desserts to keep up with the customer demands.

Three months in, and business was terrific, and then sales started to drop. A customer suggested that Fran serve food along with the desserts. Coming up with a menu was the next big task. After creating a menu, sales were up again. Fran's Chicken and Waffles were a hit! Then sales plummeted again. After meeting with her mentor, they came up with a plan to bring awareness to black-owned restaurants, which became Memphis Black Restaurant Week (MBRW).

H.M. Dessert Lounge was the face of MBRW, which Cynthia Daniels launched in 2016 to help Fran with sales. That week, H.M. Dessert Lounge raked in $15,000 in revenue. In the three years that Fran was on Madison, she made $750,000 with only food sales. "We sold service; the food was the icing on the cake," she says. H.M. Dessert Lounge was a brand that offered atmosphere and excellent customer service.

January 25, 2019, Fran closed her restaurant. She separated from her husband of 20 years just three months prior. Part of the agreement was to dissolve the restaurant. After closing the restaurant, Fran was finally able to take a break. Working non-stop, accommodating her customers, preparing for the next day was Fran's life 24/7 for three years. Taking a much-needed break, Fran had to assess what was her next move since she didn't want to cook anymore. Fran had lost everything. Even down to the forks and spoons.

Fran needed to earn money, so she kept cooking as a private chef. It became mental anguish. Fran recalled that she stopped studying her craft and was doing the bare minimum to get by.

At a private function, Fran met a guest that challenged her to a chocolate cake baking contest. That challenge made Fran excited again! She could feel her mantra “Cooking is Love Made Visible” revitalized.

Now that Fran has reignited her passion, she is reliving the fact that cooking is still a part of her. Baking that chocolate cake took Fran back to her eight-year-old self when she made her first cake for her daddy.

That visitor who challenged Fran was the missing piece to her healing. Fran found her happy place again. Cooking is now attached to love and not trauma. On Halloween 2020, Fran was the celebrity chef for a cooking demo for the Kamala Harris campaign fundraiser. That star-studded Virtual Homecoming Celebration was hosted by Star Jones and the Democratic African American Leadership Finance Council.

Fran’s success as a Chef is attributed to mentoring from Felecia Bean Barnes and the late Chef Gary Williams, and a lot of others who taught and prepared her for the life of a Chef. Fran's journey of ups and downs, failures and successes has made her the Chef and woman that she was destined to be by showing her love through cooking. Fran lives by this one philosophy, "If you move forward towards what you're purposed to do, the pathway will illuminate itself.

Fun Facts About Fran

Has 4 sons and all of them have the same middle name as their Father.

Tagline: Cooking is Love Made Visible

Famous Dish: Chicken & Waffles

Cooking Recommendations: Patience is Virtue

Go to Seasoning: Sazon Perfect Seasoning

Celebrity Chef Inspiration: Gordon Ramsey