American Tea Room Reopens Beverly Hills Location

After a 15 month hiatus, American Tea Room’s original Beverly Hills outpost is open for business. The 14 year old tea business owned and operated by David Barenholtz now has 3 locations, one in Downtown Los Angeles, one in Newport Beach’s Fashion Island, and the original location in Beverly Hills. The Beverly Hills location reopens with the addition of coffee and juice service and is pursuing a liquor license to serve wine and beer, but the bulk of the floorspace is dedicated to retail.

Barenholtz “experienced a number of difficulties during the Beverly Hills renovation, going through 3 designs and the permitting process for each, and a bout with cancer before taking a hard look at the most successful aspects of the company and deciding to go back to it’s retail roots.” The newer American Tea Room locations in Downtown Lost Angeles and Newport Beach experimented with foodservice  but David said that “food took a lot of the focus off of the tea business — having a restaurant and having a tea business are two very different things.”

American Tea Room is planning both a stateside and international expansion hoping to have stores in Chicago, New York and Seattle within the next two years. The company is also planning several brand extensions, including a line of candy.