York’s newest tea room off to a flier with support from locals and the LGBT+ community

York’s newest tea room has made a fantastic start, its owners say.

Tony Vickers and his partner Thomas Bojaczuk opened The Old York Tea Room on Goodramgate, transforming the building into a cosy and homey tea room, in a process that took around four months. Now they’re open and people are loving it.

“The reaction has been really positive, especially along the street here,” said Tony. “All the businesses are coming in, there’s lots of support from the church behind us, and the LGBT+ community have got behind us.”

The tea room has 14 seats in total, and they can get filled up quickly, particularly during the weekend.

“During the week, it’s more local people who are coming in – we’re seeing the same faces coming back.”

The attractive window display is filled to the brim with delectable looking pastries, cakes, brownies and blondies.

All the cakes and cheesecakes are homemade by Tony and Thomas themselves, and they make them both at home and on site.

Their creations include rocky road, kinder bueno blondies, and lotus Biscoff baked cheesecake. During half term, they made blondies with Haribo sweets baked inside them – “kids seemed to like them, but it was the weirdest texture you can imagine!”

The tea room has – unsurprisingly – a wide selection of loose teas (£3.10) such as Assam Panittola, Very Berry Burst, Peach of Summer and Liquorice and Mint. They also offer coffees, hot chocolate and cold drinks too.

All their sweet treats and drinks are available for takeaway.

The Old York Tea Room also do a selection of dishes for breakfast and lunch, including scrambled eggs on toast (£4.70), bacon bap (£4.85), crumpets (£2.55), cream tea (£6.45), sandwiches and paninis (from £5.95), jacket potatoes (£6.95), and quiche of the day (£7.45).

The building was previously home to the candle shop Born of Botanics, which has relocated to Stonegate.

It is part of Lady Row. Dating from 1316, the Grade I listed building is the earliest row of houses surviving in York, and some of the oldest homes in England.

There’s also family history with the street, as Tony’s mother used to work at a tea room next door called Crumbles, which was open in the 70s and 80s.

“It just felt right,” said Tony. “Especially with the church behind us and the Anne Lister connection – for us as well that was quite important.”

Behind The Old York Tea Room is Holy Trinity Church, where – as shown on the blue plaque at the Goodramgate entrance – Anne Lister took sacrament to seal her union with Ann Walker in 1834.

The interior is modelled on Tony and Thomas’ own lounge, with the wallpaper and the lamps being the same as in their own home.

“We wanted it to feel like a home from home,” explained Tony. “For us, it was more like having a second home – somewhere where we could be comfortable and everyone else would come in and feel that as well.”

It hasn’t been completely plain sailing though, as Tony and Thomas haven’t been able to do everything they wanted to do originally – yet…

“When we first started we wanted to do afternoon tea, but we’ve realised that’s not going to be possible. We’re just far too busy, as a good afternoon tea takes an hour and a half. So that’s unfortunate.”

The team at the tea room is made up of just Tony and Thomas, and they plan to keep it that way for now.

The Old York Tea Room is open from Wednesday to Sunday, 9am to 5pm.

For more information and to keep up to date with The Old York Tea Room, visit their Facebook page here.

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