Provided by Tea & Poets
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Are the kids still alright?
You could be forgiven for assuming it is once again an open question. After all, in the more than 60 years since The Who crooned ‘n’ clanged their brief for the affirmative, our culture has been beset by ceaseless waves of political and technological disruptions that have left even our strongest foundations — not to mention addled attention spans — a bit shaky.
If you want to rediscover optimism right here in Miami, however, simply visit Tea & Poets, the bustling, thriving bastion of art, music, crafts, food, exquisite teas, innovative mocktails, and high vibes situated inside The Shops at Sunset Place like a beachhead taken by a rising generation of heart and soul rebels seeking deeper meaning, realer experiences, and a better way. It is an accessible, low-cost infrastructure for actualization and creation in a city that often feels determined to price its own residents out of culture.
“This place, in a way, is my gift to the younger generation,” Tea & Poets founder Joaquin Ortiz tells New Times during one of café’s legendary Wednesday open mic nights, taking advantage of a set-change lull between a teen offering up a soulful rendition of Elton John’s “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” and a bit louder take on “Interstate Love Song” by Stone Temple Pilots.
“I wasn’t the best kid,” says Ortiz. I don’t come from a ton of money. I was out on the street, doing stupid stuff. Came home in the back of a police car more than once. If I had a place like this, maybe I would’ve got on the right track a little sooner, and my nose would still point straight ahead.”
At our best, though, obstacles — to crib a maxim from motivational writer Gabby Bernstein — are detours in the right direction. And it’s difficult to argue Ortiz hasn’t made the most of his hard-won wisdom as Tea & Poets prepares to celebrate its 10th anniversary with a special edition of its open mic in which guests are “invited to perform, share a poem, sing a song, tell a story, or simply enjoy the evening.”
“Promises of what I seemed to be,” the kid onstage sings, mining new passion from a decades-old song, “only watched the time go by.”
Indeed, it has.
“Too bohemian”
For nearly two decades, Ortiz has been a fixture on the Miami culinary scene. He is currently proprietor of much-beloved Jealous Fork — New Times’ 2026 Reader’s Choice Poll pick for Best Breakfast in Miami — and Blue Fox Bakeshop, but since 2002 has “successfully opened and operated fifteen different hospitality concepts,” including his own first restaurant Segafredo in 2007 at 28.
It was gratifying, of course. And yet his 20s felt like a rocket ride through a thick, if sumptuous, haze of insane restaurant hours and the accompanying Bourdainian debauchery. “I wanted to open a business that was all my favorite things, minus the toxicity,” Ortiz says. He saw a rising need for something both mixed-use and human-centered in an increasingly atomized culture.
And then the women’s clothing mall mainstay Delia’s went out of business, and its former slot in Sunset Place was liquidated. Ortiz was living and working nearby. The empty space captured his imagination. Indeed, Ortiz describes Tea & Poets as a kind of real-world facsimile of his mind’s interior — and he believed the South Miami suburbs could support the vision. Ortiz went to the then-leasing manager and explained the concept — he was promptly turned down.
Too bohemian, not corporate enough, he was told. Undeterred, Ortiz checked in every six months, through multiple owners, to reiterate his vision and gently remind them of the rent they could be collecting from the dead space.
One day in early 2016, his perseverance paid off: A young woman from New York took over Sunset leasing, and Ortiz pitched Tea & Poets to her as a Miami Chelsea Market. The lightbulb went on. Ortiz got his green light. He invited his two best friends to join the adventure, and it was off to the races.
Provided by Tea & Poets
As for the name?
“I always knew I wanted to call it Tea & Poets,” Ortiz says. “What is tea? Tea is something that goes through a very hard, intense process and comes out the other side as the most delicious, warming, comforting, amazing thing. And poetry is not necessarily ‘to be or not to be,’ you know? You can write like a poet, cook like a poet, play soccer like a poet. It’s moving in rhythm and synchronicity of your own life.”
Small cog in the wheel
To prepare for the opening night, Ortiz and company covered the windows of the new venture in brown paper festooned with inspirational quotes from Shakespeare, Poe, Bruce Lee, and others. “We left a little mystery,” Ortiz says. “We didn’t want to define it for everyone — it was important for us to keep it collaborative with the community.”
The community, for its part, met Ortiz more than halfway: Nearly a hundred people showed up for that first open mic on Wednesday, July 1, 2016. It has never really let up. The kids still show up, as do many adults who haven’t lost their taste for whimsy (and great bites and drinks). Some open mic’ers have landed on television shows like “The Voice” and “American Idol.” There have been marriage proposals, and people have come out to their peers onstage. Performers have been transformed by overcoming stage fright in a hyper-supportive environment. And then there are the more than a dozen vendors to whom Tea & Poets leases out shelf space on three-to-six-month leases — the sort of outside-the-lines creatives that would never get a shot at a capital-hungry mall kiosk.
“We’ve had so many life-altering, beautiful moments inside this space,” Ortiz says. (He watched his own retired mother take the stage to read her poetry for the first time on a visit from Montana.) “I’m a very small cog in the wheel just trying to do my part to create a space to preserve humanity, but for me it doesn’t need to ever get any bigger than seeing my mom on this stage, expressing herself, and proud of what her son has built.”
What Tea & Poets has is something no high-priced consultant can provide: a sense of belonging, engagement, and personal investment in a business that transcends dollars and cents. “I’m not a wealthy person by any means,” Ortiz says. “A place like this will teach you that you don’t need a lot of money to make a difference, though. You just need the will to do it.” For the new father, it is this lesson — work ethic plus positive intent yields transformative change — that he hopes his own son will one day glean from all of this. No doubt many patrons of Tea & Poets over the last decade have emulated Ortiz’s inspiring example as well.
“I love cooking, like, to my deepest core,” Ortiz says. “But Tea & Poets is the most meaningful of my projects to me. It is where I feel like I can affect the most people in the most positive way.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the question Ortiz is asked most these days is what Tea & Poets will do when Sunset Place is eventually razed. It is, perhaps surprisingly, not really on his radar yet.
His attitude? He’ll cross that bridge when someone else burns it. “It’s like that old saying, ‘If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans,’” Ortiz says. “No one has said anything definitive to us. If the mall tells us to leave, we’ll pivot, whether that means moving within the mall or somewhere else in the city. If that day does come, I have a lot of faith in the community, online and in person, to support us wherever we are.”
Tea & Poets’ 10th Anniversary. 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 1, at Tea & Poets, 5701 Sunset Dr., Unit 126, South Miami; 786-216-7201; teaandpoets.com. Admission is free.
