Friday Afternoon Tea turns 10 today!
It has been my heart's joy and pleasure to serve and help cultivate this wonderful communitea over the past decade.
From a single bookshelf of tea in my apartment's dining room to a full-fledged store in Seattle's darling Wallingford neighborhood, we have a lot of growth to celebrate!
Ten years of scrapping and stubborning-out has paid off for us in a big way. We have built a third place for all Thirsty Nerds. We have actively contributed to our community and facilitated a fantastic work environment for our staff to grow and be supported as individuals as well as team members. We have taught, learned and been inspired by all of you.
On a personal level, this tea company has served as a fertile field for my own inspiration and drive. It has allowed me to pursue my tea dreams while raising a kiddo on my own. Teacup (now fully a teen) and I love our family business with all our hearts and are grateful to see the love on all of your faces as well. Thank you for ten years of tea love!
A timeline of our growth:
October 6th, 2010: I quit my corporate kitchen job and officially launched fridaytea.com from my dining room table, an IKEA bookshelf with 16 tea jars behind me. Two of those were my own blends, and they were frankly just kinda ok.
November, 2010: A dear friend asked me to create custom teas for an Alice in Wonderland party. I thought "well heck, all those characters already taste like complete flavor profiles in my mind, this isn't too hard!" and fandom blending was born. Those teas were our Wonderland and Queen of Hearts, still very popular teas! Working gift shows and cons soon followed as I began creating fandom blends in earnest. Found my niche!
Summer, 2011: I took some time off due to the death of a dear friend and my own fractured spine, foot and ankle. Teacup was about to start Kindergarten and I didn't know if I'd ever come back to tea practice.
2012 - 2016: Back with a vengeance, working every comicon and local craft show we could, juggling restaurant work, single parenting, putting myself through college, moving every year or two and growing the business steadily in my "spare time." It was a lot.
Fall, 2016: I said fuck it to the toxic world of restaurant work, ran a successful Kickstarter to open a brick-and-mortar tea house, lost everything in a house fire, and started looking for a retail venue while struggling to put my life back together in the wake of our burnination.
Spring, 2017: We found the perfect venue! The next six months were spent waiting for permits, but we were eventually able to open our doors to you.
December 9th, 2017: GRAND OPENING DAY OF THE TEA HOUSE! The moment I'd been dreaming of since I was 17 years old. My whole adult life had been working toward this moment. Our opening day was 11 straight hours of wall-to-wall people. We had never worked so hard a day in our lives. My incredible my other half, known now to the internet as Dr. Boyfriend, was by my side every minute, as was my amazing mother.
2018 - Current: The past three years in this space has seen remarkable growth, averaging 80-90% annually since we opened the brick-and-mortar. That's AMAZING and each and every one of you is responsible for keeping us thriving even during the trash fire that is 2020.
Thanks to you, we have been able to grow our roots and give back to our community when they need it most. It is an incredible privilege to survive in this economic climate at all, and to be able to contribute to the well-being of others as well? That's the dream. My heart is so full. From all of us here at Friday Afternoon, much love and thank you for loving us!
xoxo, Friday
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