What do you want from a teashop?

[littleteapotandcake]

I'm at the very early stages of looking at taking over a teashop in a small seaside town. I would interested in finding out what you like or don't like when you visit or any advice from anyone who has done/is running a teashop now. TIA

I normally visit coffee shops by bike so the ability to take my bike inside, or secure cycle parking outside with locks available to borrow (most cyclists don’t carry locks with them due to weight)

A good selection of teas.
I rarely see silver needle in a tea shop.
Home made bakes please. You can definitely tell when they've come from Costco.
Comfortable seating would be good.
Clean facilities, more than 1 if there's room.
Really good customer service please. A smile and good morning etc is always welcome 😊
I very much like to see local artists on the walls but some may find that old hat.
Best of luck with your Tea Shop 🌺

OP So much depends on where you are and what your client profile will be. I suggest (seriously) that you spend at least a week - ideally at peak holiday time AND in the depths of winter - just watching and looking at the sort of people who frequent your locale.

What makes the ideal teashop in a pretty, easily accessible 'ordinary' touristy village (think National Trust) or a 'vair' posh/fashionably alternative north-Norfolk yuppie-on-sea resort or a nice, busy market town almost anywhere is going to be totally inappropriate for (for example) one of the most successful teashops that I know of, which is the station cafe at Ft William in Scotland, where they deal with hungry hikers plus ordinary, no-fuss locals. (And which has, I might add, some of the most helpful and considerate and hardworking staff in the whole of Lochaber. ANYWHERE that is so important.)

You need to ask 'who are my clients' and 'what do they want'? Furthermore 'what do they value' and 'what can they afford'? The answers to these questions are infinitely variable. They depend on where you are situated, and what your local customer base is likely to be.

Contact your local university see if they have funded assistance available to those starting a new business.

Don't know about current usage, but in Greece at least up until the late 1990s 'Nescafe' (or 'Nes') was used to distinguish 'Western European-type coffee' (usually, but not necessarily, instant) from thick, sugary, boiled Greek coffee.

Some of these answers 😂
I can only assume pps have never run businesses themselves because of some of the niche and inevitably wasteful ideas on here.
Others who have run tea shops can correct me but I would have thought a lot can be achieved by getting the basics right and building on that. As this thread proves, you really can't please all the people all the time (I HATE warm scones and bread!)
So for me this would be:
Plain white crockery that can be easily replaced in case of breakages
Tea pots!
No table clothes (lol at the pp who said white linen tablecloths - the time/cost involved to launder them would be madness)
Offering mugs or cups. I prefer mugs my mum wants a cup. I don't suppose we are alone.
Personally, I would think twice about sofas, books etc. You need to get as many covers on a day as possible. Giving people the excuse to stay an hour after buying one cup of tea is not good business
In terms of food/drink, I don't think you need lots of variety as long as what you do have is home made and good quality. I would probably offer plain, fruit and cheese scones, three types of cake (plain eg lemon drizzle), iced ( eg Victoria sandwich) and fruit (christmas/simnal/light fruit cake) I would offer brownies for those keen on chocolate and flapjacks/traybakes. Maybe fairy cakes for children
For drinks, breakfast, Earl Grey, one type of fruit and maybe chamomile/rooibos/green tea. Although tea lasts a long time, keeping a massive variety of teas that are barely used is money tied up.
For coffee, in all honesty, I would start with cafetieres and take it from there. And I say this as an espresso drinker. Massive machines cost money and time and might not be necessary.
I would observe your clientelle over the first three months and see what they want. It's no use offering children's toys if your customers are all pensioners.
Clean, good food and decent prices in the right area is where I would start

Bike locks you can borrow also seem insane to me - what on Earth happens when someone pinches the carbon fibre lean mean mammil machine that costs more than most people’s mortgage repayments that was locked up with your cheapo bike lock?!

Who borrows a bike lock? Keep it on the bike surely?

We had a tea house in our area that was around for 12 years (I was always there for high tea with my son).

They had high tea (and a smaller high tea for children). Many school children went and had afternoon tea there after school.
Vegan menu aswell as ordinary menu.
The lady who ran it knew her teas and what to recommend and also ran tea classes. They sold tea and teaware, I still have my alice in wonderland stuff.
They were always booked out.
Miss that place, she knew her stuff.

Dog friendly
No kids - in fact I'd go as far as to say over 18's only
Lots of coffee in real pots
Good cake and lunch options
Comfy seats
Sofa with a decent sized table to rest food/coffee on.

Just for balance to PP

No dogs
Family friendly
Nice tea varieties
Decent coffees
Local art on the walls
Notice board of local stuff
Friendly staff

Tea in a pot, but with an extra pot of boiling water as tea can often be too strong.
Always, always clotted cream with scones. Not double, not whipped, definitely not squirty.
Cups with handles that you can get your fingers into properly. I’m always amazed by the nice-looking but unusable cups I’m given in cafes. Does no one who owns cafes ever try them out before buying hundreds of them?
Jugs that pour properly.
Homemade cakes.

Piping hot rather than lukewarm fresh coffee, not instant rubbish.
Piping hot tea made in a China teapot with good quality teabags.
Teapots that don't pour tea all over the shop.
Clean and tidy with space to move between tables and chairs.
Reasonable prices.

Are Victoria sandwiches iced?
And I'm 48 and would totally buy a fairy cake

I agree with cafetière coffee. Much more in line with the tea-shop vibe. If I want a serious barista coffee I'll go to a coffee house.

They have icing inside them? Maybe not iced per se but an example of one of the three types of cake on offer

A true (WI Rules) Victoria sandwich has only jam inside. Commonly they also have cream, or occasionally buttercream (wrong - too sweet). They are never iced.

Fruit cake - especially heavy, dark Xmas cake type - is widely disliked. I like it, and even I'd be unlikely to buy it in a teashop. Anything darker than a tealoaf/barabrith type fruitloaf is likely to see significant wastage.

Lemon drizzle is a good call, though- that's always popular. So is Jamacan ginger cake.

A regular offering should be tiffin or tipsy cake, because they use up any leftover cake of biscuits from the previous day.

Oh really? I would have thought the long shelf life of that type if cake would be an advantage, but I did say I was happy to be corrected.
The specifics of the types of cakexare nit really that important though - I was just trying to illustrate I wouldn't offer half a dozen of the same type of cake

I know, I wasn't trying to argue, just interested/wondering if I've been thinking Victoria sponge was something totally different all this time!
Maybe as a category they come under 'sandwich cake'?

I think I'm in a serious minority, but my heart sinks when I go to a cake place and there's yet another lemon drizzle on offer. I don't get on with citrussy cakes/puddings at all and they seem ubiquitous. But it's fine if there's some choice. Personally I don't think there's nearly enough coffee and walnut cake around. My neighbourhood is hoaching with cafes and bakeries but there's only one place that offers it, and it's only sporadic.

@littleteapotandcake I hope has successfully purchase the business by now. She's been gone ages

Good tea and coffee
Scones, cream and jam including gluten free options (rare).

After having gone to a previously good cafe over the weekend, I just want to add don’t make the vast majority of your cakes vegan and gluten free with weird flavours, unless you’re aiming at that specific market. Having a couple of options are great, but most people who don’t need vegan or gluten free would probably prefer the regular version. (And I imagine non-vegan gluten-free people don’t always want vegan cakes and vice versa)

Yes I would rather not have vegan stuff as I like dairy and eggs in cakes. Just changing a recipe to gf flour is not so much of an issue though for non-coeliacs. I suppose something for everyone is the way forward.

GF scones are rare and so coeliacs always feel left out. A cream tea is not a cream tea without scones.

The issue with GF is that you can't really claim it is GF unless it is made in an environment where there is no gluten. So it's not just a case of replacing flour with GF flour (nor is it that simple to make anything edible with GF flour!)
I think sometimes you just have to accept that thems the breaks if you visit a small tea shop with allergies/intolerances. You can't please all the people all the time, and the vast, vast majority pf people are not coeliac.