COVID claims popular campus coffee shop but something new is coming next month
A popular University of Kentucky coffee shop had been expecting to reopen this fall. But the coronavirus pandemic changed that.
Instead, a smoothie restaurant chain will be opening in September.
A new Tropical Smoothie Cafe is expected to open its second Lexington location at 385 Rose St. about Sept. 14, according to franchise owner Ashish Patel. He said they expect to open three more locations in Lexington. There also is a Tropical Smoothie Cafe in Beaumont.
Tropical Smoothie Cafe features a menu of sandwiches, wraps, bowls, quesadillas, breakfast items and smoothies. It will be open Monday through Friday 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the former location Coffea.
Sam and Nui Tantasook, co-owners of Coffea, said they’d hoped earlier this year to bring their coffee and tea shop back to full strength the fall of 2021, when they’d wished things “would probably be a lot closer to normal.”
Coffea, which was located in the Coliseum Plaza at the corner of Rose and Euclid (also called Avenue of Champions) across from UK, had been hit hard by COVID, they said in an email.
“The long shutdown and reduced traffic around the UK campus due to the COVID-19 pandemic had a very negative impact on Coffea,” they said. “We had a lot of support from our customers. They were just wonderful and encouraging. They bought gift cards, bought extra drinks, and gave our baristas really good tips! It made us really happy that we had such great customers who loved the shop as much as we did. We really appreciated their support.”
But the reduced traffic forced them to reconsider the location and they closed Coffea at the end of April.
“We had to make a very tough decision to close down our beloved shop and look for new opportunities elsewhere,” they said. “When the right opportunity comes, we’ll probably reopen in our reimagined form.”
The Coffea coffee shop almost closed in 2016 after the shopping center got a makeover and BurgerFi moved in. But at the last minute, Bangkok House owner Pom Bunchatheeravate took over the business. He sold Coffea to the Tantasooks a year later.
