Hidden Gems: Meet Risë Jones of TeaLee’s Tea House and Bookstore

Today we’d like to introduce you to Risë Jones.

Hi Risë, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’m a first-generation, first-born Denver Native – our mother was from Larned, Kansas and our father was from Little Rock, Arkansas. Three daughters were born to our parents who have been married for 61 years. I start at this point because my journey from the start to now would not be the same without my family. My mother would tell us as her three daughters, “There are only three of you and you need to stick together”. 

Our father passed in 2017 and our mother in 2022, with the passing of our parents we as siblings often reflect on our life as a family – the challenges and the good times. The challenges teach us as many lessons as the good times. It’s the combination of the two that gives us the guidelines for life. Me and my sister’s often give credit to our family for the people we are now – in all our perfections and imperfections. 

I started this way to give credit to who I am and where I am. Our parents always exposed us to as much as they could afford, and education was a number one priority. As I think about my business journey as the Owner/Manager of TeaLee’s Tea House and Bookstore. It did not start with a dream of being an “entrepreneur”. 

After graduating from college with a degree in Political Science, my goal was to find a “job”, move from my parent’s home, and become self-sustaining. My “jobs” took me into a career path of training and development, organization development, project management, and event and meeting management. 

In 2011, while managing a meeting in Branson, Missouri, I felt unusually ill the entire week of the meeting. Anticipating going home, I told my husband we needed to go to urgent care after he picked me up from the airport. It took over a month to be diagnosed with leukemia. The treatment diagnosis was chemotherapy followed by a bone marrow transplant. 

After the bone marrow transplant in April 2012 and a two-year recovery – my husband asked the question “What do you really want to do with your life?” My indirect response ‘open a teahouse”? We went about the business of developing a business plan in 2015 and securing an SBA loan. 2016. TeaLee’s Tea House and Bookstore opened in 2018. 

We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Life is an obstacle. Learning from the challenges is living. 

1) Math – reading was never a challenge and always enjoyable. Adding, division, multiplying and division were manageable. In high school I nearly flunked geometry, it made me feel dumb and I couldn’t get anyone to help me understand what I didn’t know. 

2) Figuring out what “I wanted to be when I grew up”. The concept of knowing what you “want to be” is a very grown-up concept. Most people can tell you “‘what” they do and struggle with “who they are”. Me Too! Liking history, leaders in history, and political movements led me to be a “Political Science Major” and my “jobs” led me to training and development and organizational development. I find myself being a behind-the-scenes “conduit” – finding ways to make things happen. 

3) The challenge of being a parent to – two beautiful daughters. Wanting to guide them by my experiences and life yet step back and let them be who they are. They’ve done a great job of discovering themselves! 

4) Entrepreneurship – “creating or extracting economic value in ways that generally entail a minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values beside simply economic ones”. That’s what Wikipedia Says! The challenge of entrepreneurship is having millions of rules and no rules – the risk of making money without going out of business in two years or less and finding a market or “real people” who will spend money on what you have to sell. In the last seven years – owning my own business has been my greatest challenger and teacher! 

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about TeaLee’s Tea House and Bookstore?
Co-founder, Owner, and Manager of TeaLee’s Teahouse and Bookstore located in the Cultural Historical Five Points District of Denver. Conceived by Risë Jones and Husband Louis Freeman, the doors of Tealee’s opened in 2018 and will celebrate seven years of being open in February of 2024. TeaLee’s has survived being a start-up business, the closing of TeaLee’s for five months during COVID and reopening. The death of husband and Co-Founder Louis Freeman after a month of re-opening post the COVID closing. 

TeaLee’s has been featured in the Denver 5280 dining Magazine capturing pictures and High and Afternoon Tea also serving a daily menu of soups, salads sandwiches, pastries, selected items with teas infused into the food as well as house-conceived cocktails and mocktails with teas. In 2023, TeaLee’s was part of National Geographic’s series “Black Travel” the “New Greenbook”. We are “The Rhythm of Tea”. 

What was your favorite childhood memory?
TeaLee’s is named after my paternal Grandmother, Evelyn “T-Lee” Jones. TeaLee’s is named in her memory, my grandmother’s house was a place of good conversations, food, and wisdom. Her home was also a gathering place for her children, grandchildren, sisters, nephews and nieces, and friends. 

In the summertime, between relative cousins and neighborhood kids… at least 10 if not more of us would play hide & go seek, up and down the entire block – in the alley, in the bushes, behind the trees into the summer night. The childhood feeling of freedom and safety and nothing but us and our imagination for entertainment was priceless! 

Pricing:

• Tea by the cup & pot – $5-$6
• Sandwiches – $8-$12
• Quiche – $8-$10
• Sunday Brunch – $17
• High and Afternoon Tea – $43-$47

Contact Info:

• Website: www.tealeesdenverteahouse.com
• Instagram: @tealeesteahouse
• Facebook: @tealeesdenverteahouse
• Twitter: @tealeesteahouse