Launching a Business – then Pivoting towards our Dream
What a whirlwind these past few weeks have been, particularly in my Tea world! I have a tea business with my friend Gail that we started almost 3 years ago: Breakwater Edge. When we started, we decided to sell tea products as well as other home décor and gift items online. We are both tea grannies at heart, and before long we realized that what we really wanted was to have a tea shop, so we pivoted slightly and made tea the focus and main product of our online store.
Tea can be such a powerful social tool, it only made sense to do some in person events to connect with people as well. We did an outdoor farmers’ market last summer, as well as some other indoor events. One thing we began realizing was that we really wanted a home for our tea shop, you know, IRL (in real life, LOL), not just online. Opening a physical tea shop was not something we could afford though, as much as we dreamed about doing that. So, when a friend recommended that we look at a year round indoor farmers market, we did!
Finding a Home for our Tea Shop
The Brantford Farmers’ Market ticked the boxes. It was indoors and all year round. We did a visit to check it out and talk to some vendors to get a feel for it. It is a nice, solid market. It is welcoming and has 30+ vendors with lots of customers attending it and has been in the community for many year. We talked to the manager of the market and completed the application. We were accepted and put on the waiting list! And then we waited…
We received notice a few weeks ago that a spot was available, and were we still interested? Interested is an understatement! LOL. We have been on the waiting list since February of this year (2024) – so really in the scheme of things, we haven’t been waiting too long. We’ve just been chomping at the bit so-to-speak. Anyway – we jumped into full swing, planning our space.
“Shopping” for Gems
Luckily, we had been on the lookout for things all summer, so that we wouldn’t panic when we got word of an opening at the market. My dad’s barn held some beautiful gems, so I scooped those up! Here’s an old china cabinet we found. It’s as if it was just waiting for our Tea Shop dream to come to life!
We picked out the ones that we thought would work in the space – measuring – of course – and picked out a paint colour (Grey Suit by Dulux in case you’re curious) to unify all the mismatched (eclectic?) pieces. I was prepared to drive down and stay a few days to do the painting (did I mention I live over 2 hours away from my folks?), but my dad (bless him!) sanded all the pieces and commandeered a friend who does furniture refinishing to do the paint spraying. They had it done in a few days! We couldn’t believe how fast they did it!
Setting up our Tea Shop
Last week, my dad drove all the furniture to the market and helped us move it in and arrange it all i.e. building our little tea shop. Our hearts are pretty much bursting apart, it is so pretty! We still have a few things we need to round out the space and make it more functional and fit more of our tea. Hopefully we’ll find what we need soon, but for now, our space works and we love it. We are trying not to spend money unnecessarily, so patience is a must!
We also had our Public Health Inspection completed. Our Inspector is delightful, truly. And she is a wealth of information that she readily shares and makes sure we understand all the information that she is collecting and why. It is such a great feeling to work with someone who wants you to succeed and makes sure you have the tools and knowledge to do so. We are the proud recipients of the green A sign (Ontario folks will know what this is LOL).
With the furniture installed and the inspection completed, we got to work filling the shelves up with our bags of tea and displaying our tea pots and tea accessories. More heart bursting. We have quite a bit of tea, and we are just so excited that we have a place to showcase it!
Tea Shop Grand Opening
OK, so let’s get to the fun stuff – the market! The market runs Fridays 9am to 2pm and Saturdays 7am to 2pm. Our first day, or rather, ahem, our GRAND OPENING was Friday November 1st. It was fantastic to be able to just walk into the market and be ready for customers. No messing with a tent, weights, and tables and then setting up the tea display. No worrying about the weather – and it was a windy day, we would have been miserable and severely anxious. When I say anxious, I’m not kidding. We dreaded the weather reports. It is simply scary being under a tent canopy when the weather turns nasty. You hope and pray that you have enough weights on the tent legs, so the wind won’t lift it or send your product flying!
Instead, we were perfectly calm (or as calm as we could be given our excitement) and happily made a pot of tea for customer sampling. And when we ran out, we made another pot of tea, because we can! We have running water and electricity. Another bonus over outdoor and temporary markets.
All in all, it was a fabulous first day – and well, a great second day too! We had folks stopping in to see us, saying that they had looked us up online and couldn’t wait for us to open! Our hearts burst some more. Other vendors came by to introduce themselves and were so welcoming.
We are just so happy. I think our Tea Shop has found a home!