Maman
Coffee chain · 62+ locations · NYC, DC, CT, NJ, PA, MD, FL + more US states; Montreal, Toronto
Maman still feels like the two-person SoHo café its founders built. It's now a chain of 60-plus cafés running on private-equity fuel, and workers rate the pay just 2.9 out of 5.
The Big Picture
Maman is still run by the married couple who opened the first café in SoHo in 2014 — that continuity is real, and investors explicitly back the founders. But the company has run on private-equity capital since TriSpan invested in 2020, a 2026 continuation vehicle brought in an institutional syndicate to fund more expansion, and the worker signal is the weakest part of the picture: a 2.9/5 compensation rating, tip-reliant pay, and no PTO for regular staff per employee reviews. The brand sells warmth; the pay structure is what to watch.
The Dirty Details
Ownership
TriSpanPrivate Equity
TriSpan is a New York and London private equity firm founded in 2015 whose Rising Stars fund invests exclusively in restaurants, often as the first institutional money into an emerging brand. Its restaurant portfolio also includes Rosa Mexicano and Yardbird. It has twice held onto a brand past the life of the fund that bought it, closing a continuation vehicle that cashed out the original investors while TriSpan itself reinvested: Naya in July 2025 and Maman in May 2026.
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Company data last updated July 2026
How does one person build and research all this? They don't: here's how it actually works. Verdicts are our opinions, based on the public sources cited above as of July 2026. Spotted something off? or learn more.