We're OPEN!
Adagio Teas' first "Tea Experience" retail store opened at 27 W. Jefferson in downtown Naperville, IL at 4PM on Sunday, October 3rd. It was the very definition of a "soft open". No press release, no advertising, no announcements, just unlocked the door and hung an open sign in the window. The concept store was born without a sound... or so we expected.
The plan was to open for an hour, run a few transactions and test our procedures to make sure that everything worked. The customers had other ideas. While most other retailers on the street were closed by 5PM, and the rest were closed by 6PM, we still had a relatively full house until after 7PM. We had more than 60 people stop in over those three hours and processed 23 tickets.
Thankfully, while the open wasn't as "soft" as I expected, and the store wasn't as ready as I had hoped, we have a very experienced and talented staff and the customers had no idea we were just getting our feet wet.
There are still a lot of things that need work, and we haven't really launched our custom blending or self-service tea bar yet (need some decent signage and we're still fine tuning the selection of tools), but we're selling tea. We're seeing a steady stream of converts. Non-tea drinkers are falling in love and casual drinkers are becoming connoisseurs. At the end of the day that's all that matters!
The store is open Monday to Friday from 10AM to 7PM, Saturdays from 10AM to 6PM, and Sunday from Noon to 6PM.
Anyone in the area is welcome to stop by this Thursday evening, from 5PM to 8PM for a small celebration of our new store. Visitors will be able to take advantage of discounts on tea, enjoy free samples of any tea in our regular collection, test drive our teaware, and blend your own teas live and in person.
For a full album of store pictures from pre-construction through the entire process up to opening day, check out my Naperville Construction Album. The only picture we're still waiting on is the final exterior shot with our new sign installed. That should come later this week.
Adagio Teas
Twitter: @AdagioRetail