Tea Lounge regulars start online petition to save coffee shop

When the Tea Lounge announced their sudden closure last week, regulars were stunned by the news that the cavernous coffee shop would be calling it quits. Now a handful of them are committed to keeping the space open as a coffee shop and community space, starting an online petition asking the landlord to hand the lease to the space over to them so they can re-open it as a coffee shop called The Meeting House. And you thought people here only petitioned to split off from Williamsburg.

Since the Tea Lounge didn’t close due to a rent increase, the petitioners are asking the space’s landlord, Harold Dixon to transfer the lease to two regulars so they can “sustain the heartbeat of our neighborhood,” in their words. The petition has a four-point plan of action or pledge of sorts, with the writers saying they’ll appreciate it very much if they still have a coffee shop and that they’ll spend money there and everything, which was apparently a point of contention in the final days of the Tea Lounge.

Over email, one of the petition’s organizers, Matthew Block, wrote that the regulars looking to take over the lease met with Dixon this weekend and presented him with their exact plans for taking over the space. Block wrote that Dixon “expressed great enthusiasm for the proposal” that was put in front of him and seemed optimistic that the space will stay a coffee shop and not wound up sold to the highest bidder. Crazier things have happened, but then again it’s Chanukah this week, so it’s a time for presents.