If you love coffee and want Belgian waffles and sweet or savory pastries, Katie and Tyler Duff are the place for you.

The Duffs are the owners of Mokka Bon, a new cafe that opened July 30 at 100 W. Market St. in Troy and has already become a popular hangout.

Katie and Tyler had had the idea for a cafe for years, but weren’t sure about the theme or direction.

As it turned out, a day in Belgium during a stopover on their way to a church mission in Uganda brought them the inspiration they were looking for.

“We were in Brussels and had the waffles and knew that was what we wanted to do,” said Katie, who along with her husband is a member of the Legacy Revival Center in Collinsville. “It was the atmosphere and it was a place where people could hang out.”

“When we ate the waffles, we realized we had never eaten anything like that at home. We wanted something different that would make us more than a regular cafe.”

The name of the café, Mokka Bon, is French/Dutch, from the two main languages ​​of Belgium, and means “good mocha”.

The initial reception to Mokka Bon was encouraging for the Duffs, with dozens of positive reviews on the cafe’s Facebook page.

“The response has been incredible. So many people have said they’d rather support a local business than a chain. It’s a little quieter in the afternoon, but in the morning it’s crazy,” Katie said. “We’ve had a lot of word of mouth and the Facebook page is really popular. We’ve just added an Instagram account.”

“The support from the city has been incredible, but local businesses have also come together to support us and promote us,” Tyler added. “At our grand opening, several of these businesses put together gift baskets for us to give away.”

Mokka Bon’s menu includes waffles (plain, with powdered sugar and syrup, whipped cream with a topping, choice of chocolate, white chocolate, caramel, Reese’s and Biscoff, and chicken and waffles).

The selection of sweet pastries includes blueberry scones, cinnamon scones, cinnamon rolls, a chocolate chip cookie and cake pops.

The savory part of the menu includes a spinach and feta puff pastry, a ham and cheese croissant, jalapeño and cheddar bagel bites, bagel bites with all the trimmings, a sausage, egg and cheese croissant, and bacon, egg and cheese bites.

“The spinach and feta puff pastry was one of our best sellers, as were the cinnamon rolls and cookie butter, and the waffles were also very popular,” Katie said.

The selection of drinks at Mokka Bon is just as tempting. The hot drinks menu includes coffee and hot chocolate as well as a selection of lattes, cappuccinos and teas.

The cold drinks menu offers a selection of iced lattes, blended lattes, iced teas and lemonades.

For the Duffs, starting their first business was a labor of love. In September they will celebrate their 12th wedding anniversary and have two children: Jade (9) and Titus (5).

Tyler still works in purchasing for US Steel/TMS International in Granite City and since the Granite City facility is currently closed, he has been traveling to Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Birmingham and other cities over the past few months.

For the past 11 months, he’s been working two jobs while he and his wife prepare to open their new restaurant in the former Collinsville Building and Loan building.

“The two of us and our family and some friends from our church did all the renovations ourselves,” said Katie, a lifelong Troy resident. “Before Collinsville Building and Loan closed, my aunt worked here and she told me they were closing that branch and only had the Collinsville location.”

Converting a credit office into a café required extensive renovation work.

“We converted three rooms into the kitchen and main seating area,” Katie said. “The front seating area was their reception area and we had to widen the bathrooms to make them ADA compliant.

“There was a spiral staircase (near the current front door) and we moved the stairs to the back. There’s a loft upstairs and that’s where our kids stay when they’re here. The floors were concrete slabs, so we broke them up and dug a trench for the plumbing and then we had to re-lay the concrete.”

Katie, on the other hand, was a housewife and mother, and running a café and raising her children was an adjustment for her too.

“It’s been busy, but the kids have coped really well,” Katie said. “Because we have a loft upstairs, they can be with us during the day. My mom, aunt and grandparents have also helped out, so the kids can get away for a while.”

The restaurant is currently run as a family business, but this will change as the company expands.

“My family is volunteering, but if we don’t hire new people soon, we’re going to overwhelm them,” Katie says, laughing. “We’re getting ready to offer online takeout orders through the drive-thru, and a few weeks later we’ll open a full-fledged drive-thru.”

“We’d like to add some outdoor seating on a patio and do some special events for holidays and football season and things like that. The menu will probably expand as we grow. Eventually we’d like to open another location somewhere else, but that’s a long-term plan.”

Mokka Bon is open Monday to Saturday from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. and closed on Sundays.

For more information, please visit Mokka Bon on Facebook or MokkaBoncoffee on Instagram.