Meet Shawn Zhao and Tiger Wang of TeaMorrow Tea House & Restaurant in South Pasadena

Today we’d like to introduce you to Shawn Zhao and Tiger Wang.

Shawn and Tiger are good friends. Back then, Shawn was a financial analyst who loved tea so much and drank it every day. Tiger was a tea pro and die-hard Laker fan.

One day, over a spicy Sichuan food dinner, they were wondering why not opened a tea house?

Later they came up with the name TeaMorrow as they wanted to make the next generation tea drinks. The logo is a cute T-rex because it is the king (in Latin) of Tea.

Step by step, it was getting real!

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The first and most horrible mistake we have made was we trust someone too easily. That story was full of desperation and tears.

After getting the lease, and before renovating our space, the first thing we needed was an architectural plan. We interviewed three architects and one of them promised us he could get everything done and approved in three months which was the fastest among the three. We heard a lot of stories regarding construction delays therefore we were very cautious and well prepared. But for a straightforward architectural plan, how could it go wrong? Without any hesitation, we happily signed the contract with him and got started.

Then the nightmare started. In the beginning, he kept saying he was busy, and the drawings would be ready next week. Then he lied to us that he already submitted the plan which later we found out was not submitted at all. There was one time, we did not trust his words after multiple disappointments, therefore we insisted submitting the plan with him. Guess what? He led us and went to the wrong office in a different city.

He was behind the schedule every single step of the way! Whenever he can miss a timeline, he did. What we did everyday was literally to text/call him and remind him of the urgency. However that liar not only did not feel any urgency, but he took his time to submit those careless drawings which had tons of mistakes. Of course, those drawings got returned for corrections once and once again, and we had to pay for multiple extra plan check fees. Can you imagine how angry and desperate we were?

Later he just cut off communications with us. We cannot just wait and watch our dream break. Therefore we ran back and forth among different agencies by ourselves to figure out where we were, what were the mistakes in the drawings and how to correct them. To a point, we already knew most staff working in the city and county plan check department.

Due to the significant architectural plan delay, we were burning cash quickly for rent, salary and other expenses. What was worse, we did not even know how much longer it would take before we can get the approved plan which was the first step of everything. We were on the edge of bankrupt even before construction. Until today, we still remember those sleepless nights.

In the end, we had to ask friends and family for as much additional funding as possible. In addition, we brought another architect and our attorney on board to deal with this terrible liar. It took us SEVEN AND HALF months to finally get the architectural plan.

This has been the single most important and painful lesson we have learnt so far – only work with someone who has great reputation and integrity. This also reminds us to be an honest and trustworthy small business to all our customers, partners and employees every single day of our journey.

Please tell us about TeaMorrow Tea House & Restaurant.
We are a tea house and restaurant serving authentic Chinese/Taiwanese tea drinks and fusion food. We are very good at making people happy through a cup of tea. No kidding.

We are well known for our tasty drinks and food, great customer service and incredibly cute interior design (by local team House of Honey!!!).

We are so proud of our amazing team! The whole team shares the same mentality that we treat each customer as a friend and we take every single cup of tea very seriously (sometimes too seriously lol).

The quality of our delicious drinks, food and heartful service definitely sets us apart.

Contact Info:

• Address: 1005 Mission St, Ste A
  South Pasadena CA 91030
• Website: www.TeaMorrow.com
• Phone: 626-4606260
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teamorrow/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/teamorrow-south-pasadena

Image Credit:
Diana Koenigsberg
Dillon Meng
Taylor Bescoby

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