The best French word to describe how Mayra Gallo has hung on in the restaurant business would likely be “incroyable (unbelievable)!”
From pain to triumph to pain and back again, Gallo has been fighting for her dreams, even if her dreams have been difficult to accomplish.
This, coming from an attorney from Venezuela who escaped the country and its tumultuous political climate to make it in the United States. Her first stop in the U.S. was Miami, and she had a short-lived franchise until a divorce took over and she moved north.
Bonjour Crêpe
- 20 S Main St Greenville
- Website: www.bonjourmain.com
- Phone: (864) 509-1090
“It was so hard to start over,” she said.
She found owning a business was a great way to put her on the path to citizenship, but it still took her almost a decade to get it. It wasn’t until she made her way to the Upstate in the 2000s and started culinary classes at Greenville Tech that she settled on French cuisine as her passion.
For four years, she operated Crepe du Jour — a restaurant not unlike her current one — until her business had to shut down thanks to COVID-19 restrictions and a business partner’s bankruptcy.
At that time, she did what only she knew how to do, and with the help of a lawyer friend and part-time entertainer at her restaurant, she was able to get investment cash, the assets and name back and try again.
This time, she opened the restaurant as Bonjour Crêpe, and Gallo has been the owner/operator/cook/dishwasher and anything else her restaurant may require. She’s expanded the restaurant’s offerings, bringing out a dinner menu and a bar. She’s served burgers, beef skewers, chicken and steak, to name a few.
Her bar is sometimes staffed with friends who Gallo says, “like to have fun behind the bar.”
She’s also fought some of the challenges of owning the restaurant. She said she routinely works 80-hour weeks, and she has to manage a lot of different personalities with the staff. She said she doesn’t have a regular bartender right now.
During the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak, she said it was difficult to keep staff, as she believed the extended unemployment benefits were keeping people home.
She’s managed to keep things together during the pandemic and she even found clever ways of dodging some of the shutdown mandates from Gov. Henry McMaster. She was able to get a few tables outside to skirt indoor dining restrictions, for example.
Ultimately, she believes it’s the unique flair the restaurant brings that makes it successful.
“I love Greenville,” Gallo said.
