A matcha latte and strawberry and Nutella crêpe drizzled with chocolate and finished with whipped cream and a strawberry make a fitting pairing in the morning sun.
Liliana Haliche has a theory about why the tables at Milo’s Cafe are full on a Thursday morning. It isn’t the espresso, or the French toast people swear is the best they’ve ever had — though neither hurts. It’s something harder to put on a menu.
“Whenever they come to Milo’s, they feel seen,” Liliana says. “Because nowadays, you can feel like you’re just a number and it’s hard to feel seen.”
The dish that makes diners rethink French toast: thick, golden brioche crowned with fresh berries and served here alongside a latte.
That feeling has turned a former cinder block motorcycle shop in Morrisville into one of the busiest kitchens in Western Wake County.
On a normal weekday, the baristas pull between 300 and 400 espresso shots — a count kept on the machine itself, and one that doesn’t include the matchas — and on weekends it easily climbs past 400. Friday through Sunday, as customers know and Liliana admits, is “crazy.”
The café took the title of Best Sandwich Shop in the Triangle from The News & Observer earlier this year. And this fall, the Haliche family cleared the final permits for a second, much larger location in Cary.
Not bad for a place whose owners once worried no one would find it.
The story starts, fittingly, with food. Liliana, who was born in Colombia and grew up in North Carolina, met her husband, Menad, a French-Algerian who had spent his life in the restaurant industry in Paris and beyond working every position from the bar to the kitchen. He’d earned a college degree in another field entirely, and for a time worked that job by day and the bars by night. But cooking was the thing he loved.
“When I met him, he started cooking these beautiful French meals for me,” Liliana recalls. “I was like, ‘Well, I’m going to marry him.’”
Menad and Liliana Haliche are preparing for a larger Milo’s while raising their two little boys.
She did. And she kept nudging. “I told him, ‘Why don’t you just open a restaurant and be a chef? That’s your thing.’” Menad’s talent, she explains, is the kind that can’t be taught. She says she’ll announce that the refrigerator is empty and she needs to go grocery shopping, and he’ll wave her off. “He’s like, ‘Oh, no, I can make you something.’ And then, with three things, five-star meal.”
Liliana, by contrast, needs the recipe. (She loves to cook, too — just with the full set of ingredients laid out first.)
The couple built the café while Liliana was pregnant with their first son, and the name came straight out of that season. They were torn between Milo and Milan. Milan won for the baby — he’s now 3, with a months-old baby brother — and Milo went on the sign.
The building needed a full renovation. Early on, there were real doubts about the location and the parking, which was limited to a few spaces out front. Both turned out fine. The lot has since expanded, and the regulars came anyway, which, Liliana points out, means something.
“We’re not in a big shopping center,” she says. “So for people to come here, they really want to come here.”
They also want to bring others. Customers have told Liliana that at many cafés, they don’t feel welcome with children, or with a bigger group, or as older guests, as the space is often designed for people working on laptops.
Paris and Algeria share wall space at Milo’s Cafe, a nod to chef/owner Menad Haliche’s French-Algerian roots, under a neon sign that sums up the whole place.
Milo’s was made to make room for all of it. Laptops are welcome. So are highchairs. On this same Thursday morning, some customers were talking, others were reading, s few were working, and a couple were playing cards.
“We wanted to just have a place that everyone is welcome,” Liliana says. “Everyone.”
Part of that welcome is personal. When the couple first moved to the area, Liliana took Menad to the Lake Norman area near Charlotte, where she grew up. Unfortunately, it didn’t feel like it could be home to him.
One shot down, a few hundred to go. On weekends, four baristas keep pace behind the counter.
Morrisville felt different — so diverse, so open. As a newcomer himself, Liliana says, Menad wanted to show others that same welcome. That’s why on any given morning you’ll hear a mix of languages and accents, from the counter and the tables alike. The team, Liliana notes, comes from everywhere.
The menu follows suit. Anything can be ordered at any time of day. Some regulars arrive at 7 a.m. for a Schnitzel focaccia, which features chicken schnitzel, Gruyère cheese, yuzu slaw, and a spicy mayo on the fluffy focaccia. Liliana might shrug, but nobody blinks.
What they’re ordering is made entirely from scratch. Every dish is prepared to order. Every sauce and dressing is made in-house, and so are the coffee syrups. Nothing is pre-made.
That was non-negotiable, especially for Menad, who wrote the entire menu himself. In the beginning, with a small staff and no idea how big Milo’s might become, the prep list — so many sauces, so many little components — was exhausting. Liliana suggested easing up, at least at first.
Menad’s response was unwavering: “No. We have to do it the right way. If not, I’m not doing it.”
A savory vegetarian crêpe under a drizzle of house-made sauce, served with a latte. At Milo’s, every sauce and dressing is made in-house and every dish is made to order.
You can taste the result. Take the French toast. When her husband first proposed it, Liliana pictured the American version — the only one she knew. Menad had something else in mind. “He was like, ‘I’m going to make a real French toast,’” she recalls.
What arrived looked nothing like the diner version. Standing tall and impeccably dressed with fresh strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries, the brioche is blanketed with marscapone cream and the crème brûlée–like crust gives way to an airy center.
Then there’s the prosciutto egg toast, light and crusty, and the savory vegetarian crepe filled with kalamata olives, sun-dried and cherry tomatoes, and spinach, finished with house yogurt sauce and parsley.
There’s also a chicken schnitzel salad, among other fresh and flavorful leafy offerings, and a summer favorite açaí bowl which, Liliana says, makes a very fresh breakfast. Milo’s Morning Bite is an evergreen morning option, its toasted focaccia smothered with smashed avocado and egg and finished with goat cheese and alfalfa sprouts. (Customers praise the perfect ratio of bread to avo to egg.)
From the pastry case comes an ube financier. Menad loved the classic French cake but found the traditional ones too small, so he developed his own recipe: bigger, gluten free, and colored with purple ube. Even gluten-loving customers reach for it. Elsewhere on the menu, because everything is made fresh, nearly any dish can be customized.
Friends linger over tea at Milo’s, where the space was designed so that laptops, longtime regulars, and families all have room.
The drinks are Liliana’s domain. “In Europe they don’t do fun drinks,” she says, and in Colombia, too, coffee is mostly just coffee. Having grown up in North Carolina, she loves flavors and syrups — real ones. Though the simplest cup in the house might be the best argument for the beans: a latte, no syrup, no sugar, nothing to hide behind.
Keeping up is a team effort. Most days, three baristas staff the front; on weekends it’s four, working at a pace Liliana describes as very high. She used to be one of them, having worked weekends since opening day. “I’m pretty fast,” she says. Then came the baby.
Something had to give due to Milo’s exponential growth and current snug space. This fall, for the first time, it was the seasonal menu. To protect the quality of everything else — and to make room for what’s next — the family paused it.
There’s a reason Milo’s Cafe was named Best Sandwich Shop in the Triangle by The News & Observer in early 2026.
What’s next is a second Milo’s location in Carpenter Village, tucked beneath new condos and much bigger, with more parking. It will carry the full regular menu, an expanded menu with dishes Menad has been wanting to make, and the return of the seasonal menu. The building is a shell, so after Morrisville’s top-to-bottom renovation, Liliana expects it to go comparatively smoothly and swiftly with roughly three months of construction.
Made to order like everything else at Milo’s, this açaí bowl is a staff pick for breakfast any season, not just for hot days.
Menad and Liliana know how it sounds, two locations and two little boys. Milan doesn’t go to daycare; he’ll start school next year, when he turns 4. “It’s hard with the children,” Liliana explains. “It will be hard anyways. So why wait?”
“Now we’re young; we can do it,” she says, with Menad behind her holding the baby and suppressing a chuckle. “And then we can take a breather.”
In the meantime, the next generation is already in training. Milan knows how to make espressos and matchas, and he’d drink the coffee, if his mother let him. One day, Liliana jokes, you might walk in and find him behind the counter.
If you do, you can bet he’ll look up and see you.
@milos_europeancafe
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