In an imaginary Venn diagram of restaurant ownership and motherhood, it’s easy to envision a number of overlapping skills: time management, grace under pressure, nurturing and nourishing, for starters.

When better to test this notion than on Mother’s Day? And whom better to test it on than the people behind Two Moms Diner in Lisbon and Two Mums Kitchen in Gray, two similarly named – but unrelated – area food businesses.

TWO MUMS KITCHEN

It turns out that even though this three-year-old grab-and-go cafe specializes in homey meals and sweets, and even though it’s run by a mother-daughter team (the daughter herself the mother of an 11-year-old boy), and even though “mum” is a Britishism for “mom,” Two Mums Kitchen was originally named for…chrysanthemums.

Eliza Watson and her “mum” Cindy Langley used a photo of two chrysanthemums as the basis of their logo, their eye-catching color scheme and their venture’s very name. But the wordplay followed in short order. “We’re both mums,” Watson said. “I’m a mum and mum’s a mum, so it kind of all came together.”

Here’s how: Langley had recently retired from a 40-year career in education. About the same time, Watson was laid off from her bank job of 15 years. The pair had long dreamed about opening a bookstore-cafe together, an idea they’d first discussed while walking on the beach in Falmouth more than two decades earlier.

“We thought, if we’re ever going to do this idea,” Watson said, “we need to do it now.”

Langley had been enjoying retirement, mostly living up at camp by Chesuncook Lake. But Watson didn’t need to give the hard sell. “Anything either of my kids ever wanted to do,” Langley said, ” I was there to support them in the direction they wanted to go.”

They plunged in. They scoured the area looking for the right spot. They found a mentor. They wrote a business plan. They jettisoned the books part of their cafe idea, and they decided to buy their own building.

The pair refined their concept: They’d make family recipes, the food they eat themselves, items like shepherd’s pie, lasagna, baked beans and date bars, plus a smattering of newer dishes like Spicy Peanut Noodles and Kale and Quinoa Salad, all packaged for carryout. They’d buy from local farmers and producers as much as they could.

Their slogan summed up their ideas — “Bring home cooking home” — while a guest book underlined them. “A hot and ready meal made our night sooooo much easier,” one customer wrote in it recently. In a corner of the painted chrysanthemums welcome sign by the door, customers are reminded to “BE NICE.”

Their first year was a little tricky, Langley said. “We had to work through going from mom-daughter, daughter-mom relationship to business partners.”

Langley is a meticulous planner, practical and organized. Watson, who once dreamed of a career on Broadway, is ebullient and unstoppable. “I have a lot of ideas,” Watson said, “and when I’ve decided that I’m going to pursue my ideas, I pursue all of them.”

Still, she added, “Even in the middle of disagreements, there was no question about whether it would work.”

Last year, they’d planned to expand the business, maybe add hours, staff, breakfast items, even a weekend day. That’s not what happened. Watson was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. She spent the year undergoing grueling treatments and surgeries. When she wasn’t in the hospital, she was on the couch, her body exhausted, her brain foggy.

For a business premised on two “mums,” they were largely down to one. But Watson and Langley never considered closing. “We don’t do that,” Langley said sternly. “And besides, this was our dream, but it was her longevity, and I figured if she could fight cancer, I can get in here every morning by 7:30 and stay till 6:30 and survive this.”

When the restaurant was new, Watson devised a monthlong, oft-changing, color-based menu to represent the rainbow for Pride Month, with items like red pepper shrimp kabobs and triple berry blini. It was a lot of work, possibly a case of Watson’s enthusiasms getting ahead of her.

This year, only a few months post-treatment, she is trying to pace herself. Two weeks ahead of Mother’s Day, she and her mom haven’t even discussed what they’ll make.

TWO MOMS DINER

Maybe the name wasn’t her smartest idea. Desaray Hayes and her then-business partner came up with it for their new breakfast/lunch spot: Two Moms Diner. Between them, they had 12 kids, including a few fosters.

But the partnership fell apart, as restaurant partnerships frequently do, and Hayes has been on her own pretty much since it opened last June. For now, she’s made her peace with the name. By the time the partnership was fraying, she’d already paid for merch, like t-shirts, as well as the sign outside and “those are not cheap at all,” she said about the latter.

“I support moms wherever. Two, three, one,” she added with a laugh.

And while the number may be off, the mom part is spot on. Hayes has three kids herself, plus one foster, all between the ages of 6 and 15. Her staff, Missy, Sondra and Monica are all moms, too, some of them grandmothers. They cover for her when she has to take a kid to a school appointment or the doctor’s office. If one of them is in a bind, she does the same.

“I have the push and I have the drive, but I only have so many hands, so many feet, and so much brain,” Hayes said, “and without that help, I really couldn’t do it.”

The organized, dependable Monica pitches in so much — she waitresses, answers the phone, arranges the flowers and washes the dishes —that Hayes calls her Momica.

There’s a certain kind of friendly mom energy at Two Moms Diner, which was filled with regulars — and several small children — on a Wednesday morning in late April. Stuffed animals sit on a bench by the door. A shelf holds crayons and coloring books. Paintings of the Golden Girls are propped up on the windows. If Cheers had been a diner, it might have felt like this.

Hayes grew up between Lisbon and Topsham. Before opening Two Moms Diner, she had a food truck and before that, she worked at several area restaurants to learn the business, including Fairground Cafe, (the now-closed) Chummys Diner and Applebee’s. She disliked the corporate vibe at Applebee’s and vowed that some day her own place would have a hometown feel.

“It’s more personable for me. When my customers come in, they pop their head in the kitchen, ‘Good morning, Desaray,’ and my waitresses get to know all of our locals, and they put an order up and I’m like ‘Yep. I know who that is — it’s Mike.’ “

A single mom, Hayes was tired of working for others, living in constant survival mode and worrying about how to provide for her kids. “What am I going to give to them, future-wise?” Running her own business will give her children security, a leg up. At least she hopes so.

Year one, she admits, has been a bit of a roller coaster. That’s part of the reason she’s holding a grand reopening this month. (Her 15-year-old son has devised a special for the day, “Bobby’s Monte,” a Monte Cristo made with corned beef hash, bacon, ham and American cheese on French toast). The diner didn’t have the easiest start. A grand reopening is a chance for a re-do, for Hayes to show the community the place is operating more smoothly now.

“There have definitely been times where I want to throw in the towel,” she said, “like when your kids are like super-naughty and you’re just like, ‘I need a minute to myself.’ You can’t leave forever but you can leave for a minute. That’s kind of how I feel here. It’s a lot sometimes. Take a minute, go out and breathe, and then come come back.”