It’s a question that we hear a lot, and we wanted to take a moment to reach out to you, our customers, to let you know how things are going and what we have planned.
If you didn’t know, Chai Cupboard is a literal mom-and-pop shop, owned and operated by the two of us, Jeni & Tim—no investors, no employees. It’s literally just us.
For the first couple of years business was okay. We were growing slowly and not profitable, but it was fine since we had the personal funds to invest in the business and keep things going. Unfortunately, over the past year and a half a few big things have changed in our personal life that have made it a lot harder to keep the tea shop afloat.
We’ve got a great base of customers who love the shop, and we love you! We like our location in downtown Everett, we believe that our city has a lot of potential, and we feel like our shop is a great addition that improves the overall character of downtown. However, so far it just has not been busy enough to drive the kind of business we need to pay the rent for our space here.
But—we’re not giving up!
How You Can Help
The bottom line is that if we’re going to make this work we need a lot more business. To help get us there we’re dramatically expanding our offerings to give you more ways to experience our teas and recommend Chai Cupboard to your friends and family.
Here are five (ish) new ways that you can help our shop succeed.
Shop Online
Our online shop is live! All of our teas and spices are now available to purchase online for in-store pickup or shipping. We’re still working through the photography, but all of our in-stock teas have pictures and we’re on our way to completing the spices.
Join our Tea Society
Get exclusive early access to our newest teas by joining our new Tea Society monthly membership club.
For just $20 a month, we set aside at least two ounces of two new teas each month for you at the shop. Members are the first to get these new teas, before they hit our shelves.
Take a Tea Class
We will be launching a “Tea 101” virtual class for corporate or private groups that teaches the different types of tea, how to brew, and more. Participants will receive a selection of teas in the mail and during the one-hour live video session we’ll walk your group through the basics of tea.
Give a Gift Card
We have physical gift cards now! We don’t like the waste of plastic gift cards, so we designed these wooden gift cards ourselves. They’re individually laser-cut by Tim out of thin but sturdy hardwood maple. You can load them with any amount you like and refill them when they run out.
Currently available in-store only, but you can still buy virtual gift cards online.
Try a Tea & More…
Did you know that we offer brewed tea in the shop? We’ll brew you up a 12oz cup to go of any tea on the shelf. It’s a great way to try something new before you commit to bringing a bunch home.
You can also help by writing a 5-star review on our Google Maps profile.
Finally, it would help us a lot if you follow, share, and interact with our content on Instagram and Facebook, where we’re going to work on posting more often.
Have Feedback or Want to Partner With Us?
We’ve had a few people express interest over the past few years in partnering with us with an investment or something similar. It’s also possible you have a brilliant idea that we haven’t thought of that would make a huge impact to our business. If either of these describes you, drop us a line at info@chaicupboard.com, we’d love to chat more!
Thank You!
Thanks again to all of you who have supported us these past three years. We don’t know for sure what’s in store for the shop, but we’re going to keep at it one way or another. We would really like to stay in downtown Everett, because we really do like it here and want to be part of helping our city live up to its full potential.