For months, Aviva Kumar, 9, has pined for a decent chocolate croissant. But those disappeared from the Roanoke Valley in March, when Full Moon Cafe on Electric Road shut its doors after two decades.
Phil Loomis might say the same thing about another staple, Full Moon Cafe’s New York-style bagels. Francis Moon, 80, crafts those carefully, by hand. Loomis’s typical order is an “everything” bagel with scallion cream cheese.
His wife, Jane, prefers the pancakes.
“Nobody puts more blueberries in their blueberry pancakes than him,” she said, gesturing to Francis Moon.
The last time I wrote about Full Moon Cafe was July 2024. Moon and his wife, Veronica, who emigrated from South Korea decades ago, were trying to sell the place through a business broker.
If no buyer materialized, Francis said back then, the couple planned to sell their home in Hunting Hills and move restaurant equipment to Pittsburgh and reopen there, where they have grandchildren.
But sometimes plans change, you know?
That’s what happened to the Moons. They decided to stay in Roanoke and in business — in a new, slightly smaller location in the same shopping center. The new Full Moon Cafe quietly reopened Wednesday.
Their previous spot was next to Cafe Asia 2 and fronted Electric Road near Colonial Avenue. The new location is in the same shopping center, adjacent to the restaurant Cast Plates and Pints.
Full Moon Cafe is open 7 a.m. to 3 p.m, every day except Tuesday. That’s the Moons’ only day off.
“It’s good to be back,” Aviva’s mom, Ashley Kumar, said as they walked in Monday. They were making a pit stop on the way to Penn Forest Elementary, where Aviva attends fourth grade.
“We would go in phases, but we were here at least once a month,” Kumar told me.
She used to regularly buy Moon’s cookies by the dozen, for her husband’s dental practice. He would give them away in “thank you” packages to other dental practices that referred patients.
The Loomises hail from Boston, and moved here four years ago to be closer to grandchildren — their son married a woman from Salem.
“We were regulars,” Jane Loomis said. “We came once, twice, three times a week. We sat in the same place every time. We were crying when they shut down. You can’t get better food.”
Being from up north, we love bagels,” Phil Loomis said. “We like Donnie D’s (a bagel producer on Brandon Avenue that was forced to shut down by a fire in May). But we love Full Moon Cafe.”
(Donnie D’s on Brambleton expects to reopen soon, an employee at the Daleville location said Monday.)
From North Korea to Roanoke
Francis Moon has an atypical back story. He was born in 1945, the eldest of five children, in what is now North Korea.
When Moon was 2 years old — in 1947, shortly after the end of World War II — his parents fled south across a river in a tiny boat.
His family ended up settling in Seoul, in what’s now South Korea, where his dad and uncle started a soap-manufacturing business.
The Korean War later destroyed that enterprise. So the family moved farther south to Busan, South Korea’s second largest city. That’s where Moon was raised.
He studied agriculture in college and after the Korean War worked in the South Korea’s military as an interpreter, where he got to know American GIs and civilians. He met and married Veronica, a registered nurse, in 1973. They moved to Hawaii in 1974, where they obtained American work permits.
Their next stop was Los Angeles, and then Detroit, where Francis had an American soldier-friend he’d met in Korea. Veronica got a job in a hospital. Francis bought a Mobil station. But his gasoline business was drastically impacted by the first (of two) Arab oil embargoes in the 1970s.
The Moons next moved to Ludington, Michigan, then to Rockford, Illinois. That’s where Francis began his restaurant career, as a busboy. It’s also where he learned to cook.
He cooked as an employee at another Rockford restaurant, before buying a former pancake house. The couple owned and operated JoJo House Restaurant from 1978 until 1983.
That year they moved to the New York City area, where Francis got a job at a pastry shop. Its French-chef owner was talented in the kitchen but awful at business.
Moon bought the place in a deal that kept the French chef on for a year, during which he taught Francis Moon everything he knew about pastry-making. It later became Francis’s Croissants.
Moon later opened Mr. Croissanterie in New York City in 1986, then two French bakeries/delicatessens in the New York suburbs of Lyndhurst and Morristown, New Jersey. Each of those was named Square Bakery, Deli & Gourmet Shoppe.
He and Veronica sold those in 2003 and 2004 and “retired” to Western Virginia, after reading an article about Roanoke in a Korean-language newspaper published in the New York City area.
They have grown three children, two daughters and a son. One daughter, Phyllis, lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her husband, a retired U.S. Army colonel and West Point graduate. They have two daughters.
Another daughter, Eunice, is a lawyer in Arlington. Their son lives in Washington, D.C., and works in marketing.
Full Moon Cafe opens 2005
In 2005, the Moons came out of retirement and opened Full Moon Cafe on Brambleton Avenue. It quickly drew a following among people who liked New York-style French pastries and bagels. Both can be hard to come by in the South.
Moon grew his customer base even more after he moved over to Electric Road. He was in business for 10 years there before shutting down in March.
“I just passed 79,” Moon said at the time. “That’s why I’m going to retire.”
He tried, but he couldn’t.
So he reopened at age 80, after doing most of the renovations for the new place himself.
Currently Full Moon Cafe is selling pastries, bagels and cold sandwiches. Moon hasn’t yet fired up his grill, which needs a new hood and fire suppression system. He’s hoping the grill will be ready by the end of the month.
Moon said he plans to begin offering daily Korean specialties for lunch, such as Kim Bab, a seaweed roll that contains no fish; Man Doo, a tasty Korean dumpling; and Bul Goki, marinated beef with onions and other vegetables.
Among the patrons Monday were Bruce Coffey and his wife, Mary Beth, who drove from Bent Mountain.
They’ve been patronizing Full Moon Cafe since it first opened in 2005 on Brambleton Avenue. Bruce’s employer used to supply the restaurant with groceries.
“The food is great,” Bruce said. “But for us, the draw is Francis and Mrs. Moon. They were missed — for a short period of time.”
Dan Casey (540) 981-3423
dan.casey@roanoke.com
@dancaseysblog
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