Tearoom to tealights: boutique business buys former Rozel café

Tuesday 27 August 2024

The location of a former tearoom in Trinity has been snapped up by a trendy Scottish-inspired boutique after spending nearly two years on the market.

Rozel Bay Tearoom, which closed in late 2022 after eleven years of delighting customers with cakes and coffees, has been purchased by Be Coorie for £575,000.

The Scottish lifestyle brand owner Deborah Anderson had always planned to open a shop in Jersey, where her boutique business already operates, offering products that serve its ethos of mindfulness, responsibility and ethics.

Her purchase, confirmed via the Jersey Public Registry, means the site has at last found a buyer after its former owner put it on the market in November 2022.

Pictured: Maria Smith ran Rozel Bay Tearoom for 11 years before it closed in 2022.

Plans were submitted in July 2023 to convert the tearooms into a three-bedroom family home after it attracted little initial interest. The application was refused.

Maria Smith, who was behind the business at Rozel Bay Tearoom, told Express of her shock when she found out her landlord was selling the building in 2022.

"The tearoom has been my whole life for many years, so it's going to be extremely hard to see it go," she said ahead of her final weekend of trading.

Despite challenges with staffing and rising costs, she said that she loved her job and that her dream would be for "someone to buy [the tearoom] and lease it back to me".

Thanking all those who had supported her, she said: "In 11 years, I feel like I haven't had to do a single day of work because I've loved my job so much.

"Appreciative customers and compliments from people are more rewarding that money – although I know it doesn't pay the bills!"

Maria has since re-opened her tearoom in a new location at Samares Manor.

Express attempted to contact Deborah Anderson of Be Coorie.