Photography by Bo Carlock / Spacecrafting
Kamal Mohamed
Kamal Mohamed’s first foray into entrepreneurship came early. In his teens, he bought gallons of vanilla ice cream and two-liter bottles of root beer so he could peddle root-beer floats at high-school sporting events. That first crack at it was a smash: He netted $60. “That was an aha moment,” he says. “Suddenly, I knew how to create value.”
Other early rewards continued to propel Mohamed forward. For example, he worked for tips in college by serving up delicious snacks after bar time. Shortly after graduating, he learned an important lesson. He launched an ahead-of-its-time food truck festival that descended into operational chaos and received tough criticism due to long lines. “Sometimes you have to get punched in the mouth to get it right the next time,” he says with a laugh. But his persistence paid off; in the festival’s second year, he quintupled attendance and food truck fans went home full.
Mohamed says his concepts always start with an assumption: If he wants something — such as a top-shelf organic neighborhood spot serving nutrient-rich smoothies and high-protein breakfast burritos — most likely, other people probably do, too. That was the beginning for the wildly popular clean-eating cafe Parcelle, which first debuted in Northeast Minneapolis in 2024. Now, he’s on track to open three more locations this year: Downtown Minneapolis, the North Loop and Wayzata.
There are two key ingredients to his entrepreneurial recipe. The first is understanding that ideas should be grounded in feeding a need, not an ego. “Whether you’re building a restaurant or a rocket ship, I always ask: ‘Is the idea from you or is it about you?’” explains Mohamed. “As long as it’s from you and not about you, you have a good chance of being successful.”
The second ingredient is knowing that the idea is just 5% of the plan. The other 95% of it is showing up. “The magic is in the work,” Mohamed says. And for eager Parcelle eaters, that magic happens on every plate and in every cup, every day.
