Today we’d like to introduce you to Amy Kaiser & Mary Hoffman.
Hi Amy & Mary, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
Amy, A family friend owned a tea shop in Dassel and my best friend worked there. I wasn’t a tea drinker at the time but she asked me to come for a cup of tea. I found that I really liked tea! Shortly after that, I came for a tea party at the same place and really enjoyed the pampering that was given to the patrons at the party and from then on I was a tea fanatic.
Mary, I always loved tea! Ashby’s of London’s Christmas Spice was my go-to tea. I moved back to Minnesota after living in New Jersey and working in the wholesale business for 25 years. My sister has always talked of opening a tea shop, it has been a dream of hers.
Talking it over we realized our dreams were similar. With our love of tea and Amy’s passion to introduce the joy of tea to others and Mary’s background in business and party planning our dream became reality and Garden Nook Tea & Gifts was created!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been an adventure. We opened in April 2018. 4 months later, when the apartment upstairs flooded our kitchen, damaging our brand-new refrigerator and freezer resulting in them being unusable. We were shut down for 2 months while we got the equipment repaired and the kitchen cleaned up.
In 2020 Covid hit, we were shut down for several months and then we tried curbside delivery with our lunches, scheduled appointments for people to shop, and offered Tea Parties in a box for them to enjoy at home. It was an emotional time, we were losing money and decided to close our business in June 2020.
Our tea and coffee drinkers asked us to stay open, drop the lunches and serve tea, coffee, and the homemade scones we serve with homemade clotted cream and lemon curd. We thought, what do we have to lose?
This is how Garden Nook became what it is now. We serve tea, coffee, and scones on the days we are open and serve lunches on Fridays. This has also given us the opportunity to bring in our Tea Parties and private parties. So there was a silver lining to Covid. Our original dream was to sell our tea, and unique gifts and pamper our patrons with Tea Parties.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
What sets Garden Nook apart from coffee shops and grocery stores is that we serve and sell high-quality tea from amazing vendors. We have 140+ teas that we sell and serve. We spend time with each customer and help them choose a tea that fits their lifestyle.
We also give programs on how to brew tea, the different types of tea, and the health benefits of tea. We offer these programs to organizations that request them.
We are a place for people to come, relax and enjoy each other’s company.
We have opened our shop for unique classes with local artists, craft nights, and other fun events.
We are also part of a group of small businesses that like to promote Dassel and have many events that the town can participate in.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you.
The good luck, if you call it luck, was the timing.
Mary moved home and Amy was between jobs, we talked about what we wanted to do and we found that we both wanted to own our own business and our dream became a reality.
Contact Info:
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GardenNookTea
Image Credits
Garden Nook Tea & Gifts
