Akwaaba Tea Room

B&B maven Monique is finishing renovations to open Akwaaba Tea Room!

Opening just a block away from Akwaaba Bed & Breakfast in Philadelphia, the Akwaaba Tea Room & Event Space will be open for elegant High Tea by reservation Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Offering “90 Minutes of Pure Indulgence” with three seatings each day, the stylish tea salon will be a calming place where friends, multi-generational family members and those celebrating special life moments can savor a fine pot of tea while enjoying artistic finger sandwiches and savories, as well as scones and decadent miniature desserts, all served on signature three-tier trays. This selection—The Baring—is priced at $44pp. The Lancaster also includes soup and salad for $50pp. To start, we conservatively expect to serve 24 guests each seating, for a total of 72 guests daily with average sales of $3,500.

Exquisite describes the tea experience at Akwaaba. Guests will delight in the colors and scents of a variety of loose-leaf teas presented on a platter for them to choose from. Then those teas get perfectly brewed and served in the teapot of their choice—Monique has personally designed three stackable styles. Can’t you see it? Fine china, a live jazz piano player, well-trained servers dressed in formal waiter black! And the décor is not your typical vintage tea room variety—no lace, floral chintz, uncomfortable antique seating, and tchotchkes everywhere. Using a black and white color palette, the clean, modern space will be accented by stylish chandeliers, black-and-white vintage photos of folks all decked out (cue Harlem Renaissance portraits), oversized plants, lush velvet banquettes with mod throw pillows, and white marble bistro tables with black Chiavari chairs.

The second floor of the tea salon, with a separate entrance on Lancaster Ave., is reserved for private, large-group tea parties—think baby and bridal showers, bachelorette fetes, special birthday and holiday celebrations, book club, sorority and civic/social/church outings. There are two powder rooms on this level, along with the Akwaaba Gift Nook, where guests can purchase all things tea and Akwaaba, including branded Tees and sweatshirts, caps, aprons and more! 

Creating a separate revenue stream, when the Tea Room is closed, the private second-floor space can be rented by customers looking to host a meeting, dinner, party, etc., with their own outside catering and drink (the first-floor space can also be added for larger, private affairs). Just like Akwaaba’s inns, the Akwaaba Tea Room is located in an architecturally rich, pre-1900s building owned by Monique. The triangular-shaped, brick manse on the corner of Baring Street and Lancaster Avenue is a standout on this highly trafficked thoroughfare, which is anchored by two major universities (Drexel and UPenn), three trusted hospitals (Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Chop and the Veteran’s Hospital), several luxury dwellings and hotels, and countless quaint shops, eateries and cultural hotspots. The trolley stop on the next corner, as well as the easy walk to the subway and to 30th Street Train Station, also make Akwaaba Tea Room and Event Space a destination experience extremely accessible for those outside the immediate area.