Monique Williams can create a restaurant faster than she can whip up a batch of biscuits.
Or it seems that way.
Williams is co-owner of Biscuits & Jams in Bartlett and co-owner of Trap Fusion in Whitehaven and Cordova. Many people remember when Williams owned Pat-A-Cake’s Bake Shop in Cordova.
You can thank her grandmother, the late Laura Stepter. “She was a pastry chef,” Williams says. “She worked for Memphis City Schools for almost 30 years. She did their pastries, made homemade breads, pies, turnovers, cakes, cookies, biscuits.”
Growing up in Midtown, Williams was in the kitchen with Stepter “helping her stir or licking the whisk after she made a cake. … She let me help, but she let me go in like I was in a lab and just experiment. I would make things and bring them out and she’d taste it.”
An alumna of Central High School, Williams graduated from Christian Brothers University and then Central Michigan University, where she got a master’s in health services administration.
She worked 24 years in clinical research but always baked for friends. She taught herself how to cook different cuisines. “I always wanted to have my own business. I knew it would involve food, entertainment, people.”
She remembers her grandmother and mother cooking for visiting relatives. “That feeling of eating together, getting together with food, just seemed to make people happy.”
Her first side business was making party decorations. “I’d do the gift bags, decorate the ‘jump the brooms’ for African-American weddings, make a wishing well for the gifts.”
In 2012, Williams opened Pat-A-Cake’s Bake Shop, serving cupcakes, pies, and cinnamon rolls. Like all her restaurants, Williams had “more of a neighborhood feel, where people sit and enjoy. The goal is to have regulars.”
She closed the bakery in 2016 because she needed a break and her daughter was about to go college. But, she thought, “It’s not the end. It’s just moving to the next level.”
Two years later, she opened Laura’s Kitchen in Bartlett, where she did “all kinds of Southern stuff.” Tired of leasing space, Williams closed the restaurant after a year and, with a business partner, opened Laura’s Kitchen food truck, mostly used for catering jobs. “Macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, all that good stuff you’d get on Sundays if you go to a Southern grandma’s house. At least the grandma I grew up with. The young grandmas, I’m not sure of.”
With more partners, she opened Trap Fusion, where the emphasis is on healthy food. “Seafood. We do some vegan, Caribbean, Cajun.”
“Trap” stands for “Take Risks and Prosper,” she says.
Williams opened Biscuits & Jams in 2021 because she wanted a place in Bartlett that specializes in brunch. “There are so many in Downtown and Midtown. We don’t have a lot of these boutique-style spaces that give you the cutesy feel with good food.”
Her February menu includes gumbo, crawfish étouffée, and shrimp po’ boys. Popular regular items include shrimp and crawfish Creole Benedict and bananas Foster French toast.
The “jams” in the title refer to the jams, jellies, and preserves Williams makes and serves. But it has another meaning. “I love good music. We’re in Memphis, kind of playing on that. We have live music and play music in-house.”
Of course, new restaurants are on Williams’ horizon. One will be a small baker’s commercial kitchen/dinner spot. Another will be “a small-plate venue,” she says. “And great drinks.”
Biscuits & Jams is at 5806 Stage in Bartlett, (901) 672-7905.
Trap Fusion is at 4637 Boeingshire in Whitehaven, (901) 207-5565; and 670 N. Germantown Pkwy. in Cordova, (901) 672-7061.