Fond of Food: Tea Bar & Bites

Tea Bar & Bites owner and operator Colleen Smith has built her business on a certain vibe.

“I try to treat our customers like they’re coming to my home,” Smith says. “It’s just another extension of my home, and that’s what I teach my employees.”

The combination of herb-laden food, the smell of freshly baked goods and the eclectic decor prepares an intimate, homey spot.

Tea Bar & Bites seats 30 in the Rountree neighborhood building, 621 S. Pickwick Ave., where Smith opened more than two years ago.

Food family

Having raised four kids, Smith knows a thing or two about nurturing the hungry, cooking for a crowd and the art of culinary improvisation. Her love of cooking and baking is deep-seated.

“I started out around age 10, mostly with baking,” Smith says. “My Irish grandmother taught me a lot. She always had aunts and uncles over (for) entertaining … and food was the focal point ¬– always.”

Smith and her husband, Steve, have thrown a lot of house parties themselves – many of them complete with a live band. The Smiths always supplied most of the food.

In 2002, after 15 years as a food broker, Smith was urged by a friend to start a catering business. She took the advice, and it proved to be quite a success, but the congenial hostess had to overcome one major obstacle.

“To charge for my food was a really weird thing,” she recalls. “I was always entertaining at home and to have to start charging for it was foreign to me. But I got over that!”

In October 2003, Smith locked into the lease at her Pickwick Place location. She shares the space with Laurie Knowlton, who specializes in massage therapy and operates Pickwick Underground, a custom framing business.

After some remodeling and getting the kitchen up to code, Smith opened the doors to Tea Bar & Bites in January 2004.

In the early days, she had a hand from her oldest daughter, Meagan, who still helps in the kitchen on a regular basis. Smith says her daughter is particularly adept at baked goods and candies.

Youngest daughter Lindsay bakes, too, at the Mudhouse downtown.

Neighborhood gatherings

The surrounding neighborhood supplies a high percentage of Smith’s clientele – another extension of Smith’s homey philosophy.

“We have customers who have me call them when I have certain dishes on the menu,” she says. “Everybody has their favorites, and I try to do that.”

Smith says she stays involved with the neighborhood in many ways, from advertising in the Rountree Elementary School paper to helping organize the Pickwick Place Merchants Association.

Cricket Fries and family live in the neighborhood, and she has worked with Smith at the restaurant.

“I’ve done a lot of catering with her, and she works hard at creating a menu that’s just right for the client, season, event ¬– whatever,” Fries says. “Colleen really puts her heart into her food and she loves having employees who take the initiative to put themselves into their work as well.”

On the menu

Smith’s menu changes on a daily basis, with emphasis on local ingredients that are in season.

Nearly everything – from the baked goods to the soups, salads and entrees – is made from scratch.

Restaurant hours are 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m. Saturday. Smith opens for dinner on First Friday Art Walk evenings.

She also purveys reservation-only “theme” dinners on a regular basis.

“For the last one, we did a Peruvian meal,” Smith says. “It was their Independence Day, so I went to the flag store and bought Peruvian flags. We’ve done a springtime in Paris, a traditional Irish meal … and we try to always have live music. Our next one is Oct. 20. We’re doing a harvest moon dinner.”

Smith still caters and has a special relationship with another locally owned business, The Moxie. Her baked goods are a staple of the theater’s concession stand.

“People get absolutely bloodthirsty,” says Nicole Chilton, Moxie co-owner. “The brownies go so quickly. … And she’s very creative. She comes up with things that are very easy for moviegoers to take in and eat.”

Smith is currently going through zoning hearings with the city about her outdoor seating arrangement, but she is optimistic about the future for Tea Bar & Bites.

“I kind of let it lead me,” she says, declining to disclose company revenues. “That’s how I’ve done it. I’ve grown with little baby steps.”

Tea Bar & Bites

Owner: Colleen Smith

Founded: January 2004

Address: 621 S. Pickwick Ave., Springfield, MO 65802

Phone: (417) 866-7500

Web site: www.pickwickplace.com (Tea Bar and Bites’ site is under construction)

Services: Restaurant, bakery and catering

Employees: 6[[In-content Ad]]