Melanie Kappel walked into 216 Coworking in downtown Cartersville looking every bit the community connector she's become, and by the end of the conversation, host Logan Lewis had traced her whole path from a Jefferson's host stand to running one of Bartow County's newest landmarks. Kappel is the manager of the Depot, Cartersville Museum City's visitor center housed in the town's historic train depot, and over the better part of two hours she and Logan worked through restaurant war stories, a crash course in leadership delivered by COVID, years spent advocating for kids in foster care, and a health scare that nearly kept her from becoming a mother at all.
A Yankee Who Became a Cartersville Lifer
Kappel was born upstate in New York and moved to Cartersville in 1998 at age six after her father opened a carpet warehouse in Calhoun. "We moved down to Georgia and we moved to Cartersville specifically in 98," she said, joking that admitting the year ages her worse than saying she graduated high school in 2012. Her dad still runs his own carpet business in Calhoun today. She described herself as a self-professed nobody in high school who was invited to parties "by proxy" through friends who were actually invited, even though her own house doubled as the neighborhood hangout. She pinpointed 2016 and 2017, the years she was coming back and forth from college, as when she first noticed Cartersville "blowing up."
Learning Leadership the Hard Way in Restaurants
Kappel's service industry career started at Jefferson's in downtown Cartersville around 2010, where she went from host to server to bartender at 18. When Mellow Mushroom opened in Cartersville in 2014, she moved over, eventually earning corporate bar training and rising to general manager of the Macon location, overseeing all five Coastal Mellow restaurants as assistant operations manager. The timing was brutal: she relocated to Macon right as COVID hit. "Two weeks later, I fired my entire staff because of COVID," she said. "Hi, I'm Melanie, nice to meet you, I'm your general manager, we're gonna rock and roll this. And then two weeks later, by the way, you guys all don't have a job anymore." She credits the restaurant floor with teaching her everything she knows about teamwork and letting go of control, a skill she says took years to learn.
Being the Voice for Kids in the Foster Care System
After a rough solo stretch in Macon, Kappel moved back home and began working, then volunteering, for CASA, Court Appointed Special Advocates, in Paulding County. "Essentially you are the eyes, ears and the voice of the kids in foster care," she explained. As a coordinator she oversaw 15 to 20 volunteers, but the pay couldn't support her on her own, so she shifted to full-time volunteering instead, a role she calls "a second full-time job" that's entirely unpaid. Her mother has volunteered with Bartow County's CASA chapter for more than a decade, and Kappel followed that lead, working mostly with teenagers aging out of the system. She's stayed close with several of them, including her first case, who is turning 21 this year. She's currently paused as a volunteer while pregnant, but the work clearly stuck with her: "Those kids are resilient. They're absolutely resilient... I love them to death. Like, they're my own."
From Squatters to Storytelling: Finding the Depot
Before the Depot, Kappel worked in property management for institutional home buyers, doing move-ins, move-outs, and turns as a field coordinator, a job that involved climbing through kitchen windows and, on more than one occasion, discovering squatters. "Give me a drill and a drill bit and I can go through any deadbolt... it's a lot easier than you think," she said of how break-ins happen. When the work got "a little sketchy," the Depot opportunity came through Caitlin, Cartersville Museum City's marketing manager. Kappel remembered a prior podcast conversation Logan had with Museum City's Stephen a year or two earlier, where he first mentioned turning the downtown train depot into a welcome center. "It felt like a year later, it was open," she said. The Depot is now a three-floor operation: the main floor houses the visitor center and the By Bartow retail space, the second floor is Museum City's marketing team, and the third floor belongs to the Downtown Development Authority. It's a nonprofit, donated to Museum City by the City of Cartersville, and Kappel is deliberate about not competing with local shops. "My job isn't to sell those items," she said of the local art she stocks. "My job is to send the people that come into the Depot to those stores to buy those items." The Depot celebrates its one-year anniversary July 17, and Kappel is already planning what she called an "absolute rager" of a block party downtown.
A Health Scare, a Surprise Pregnancy, and Her Morning Drive
In the rapid-fire round, Kappel revealed she's not a music person at all. "I don't know who sang it, I don't know the title, and I make up my own words," she admitted, adding that coworkers at the Depot handle the Spotify queue because she's not trusted on aux. Her go-to appetizers are cheesesteaks, chips and queso, and corn nuggets from Jefferson's, and a day off means a facial, mowing the grass, and a Grey's Anatomy marathon. The conversation's biggest moment, though, came when Logan asked about her new addition arriving in September: she's pregnant, after doctors once told her she'd likely never conceive. At 31 she was diagnosed with premature ovarian failure, effectively full menopause, and given less than a 5% chance of a natural pregnancy. She found out a week after her first date with her boyfriend, Nick, who stuck around through the uncertainty. "There is hope, people," she said. Asked what gets her out of bed every morning, her answer was simple: her rapidly growing family, from her soon-to-arrive baby and two step-kids to her siblings and nephews. "They're the reason why I do things."
Listen to the Full Conversation
Catch the full episode with Melanie Kappel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube to hear the entire conversation, including her stories from Jefferson's and Mellow Mushroom, more on the Depot's plans for its one-year anniversary party, and why she still swears she's not a control freak. If you're in Bartow County, stop by the Depot in downtown Cartersville, right across from Heaven Sent in Friendship Plaza, and follow along on Facebook and Instagram for what's new.
Listen to Episode #490
Catch the full conversation with Melanie Kappel on Your Morning Drive, wherever you listen.
