Brisbane has bid farewell to yet another slice of suburban cool: Southside Tea Room, which closed its doors for the final time in November.
Southside Tea Room has been a staple of Morningside neighbourhood culture for the past six years, owned and operated by the husband-and-wife team of Patience Hodgson and John Patterson, also of Brisbane band The Grates.
In a statement published on the Southside Tea Room Facebook page in late October, Patience and John expressed their sincere gratitude to the community of loyal customers and supporters the shop had built up in its time.
The closure of Southside Tea Room sees Patience and John refocus their time and energies on raising their family as well as returning to their one true love, music.
The Grates recently got back together in their original line-up of Patience, John and drummer Alana Skyring for their 'Reunited & Excited' tour. Read our review of their Brisbane show here.
Read the full statement from Southside Tea Room below:
“The times they are a-changing…
“THANK YOU amazing community for all of your support over the last 6+ years… it has taken a huge amount of bravery to make this decision, the decision to close Southside, with Sunday November 4th being our final day of trading. Ever.
“What we have be able to achieve, and the memories we have made together, are nothing less then epic. We have put on more events then we can even count, had intimate performances from some of Australia’s biggest musicians (Courtney Barnett, The Preachers, Robert Forster, The Good Sports, Henry Wagons just to name a few), held multiple sold-out Plaster Fun House nights, raised money for charities, spent New Year's Eve together, sung our hearts full with Disney Karaoke, crafted rugs, macramed, challenged you with niche trivia, launched incredible beers, recorded podcasts, enjoyed gorgeous Art exhibitions from local and international artists and yearly listened to The Hottest 100 together + the all the rest. We have had some of the most special nights of our lives HERE together.
“Thank you
“Thank you for you support, your kindness, your enthusiasm, your commitment to community and your friendship. A massive thank you to all our our amazing staff over the years, we LITERALLY could not have done it without you. You helped us make this business a home and worked with so much sincerity to make employment feel like family (which sometimes it was!). We love you.
“A special thank you to our longest customers that have been with us since the start, you know who you are (angels).
“We’d like to thank our parents for all their efforts behind the scenes, when we needed movers, cleaners, babysitters or a listing ear. And our kids, who more times then we’d like to admit, took a back sit while we worked on or in the shop.
“And finally we’d like to thank all the fans of our music and band, for being so patient with us while we experimented with another path. We never managed to strike a balance between industries and can not be more thrilled about returning to music. Music, we have missed you so much.
“It’s the end of an era, but the start of our lives as parents to our kids.
“See you round the hood! And please, come say goodbye and grab some kind of bargain in our final week of trade or buy a table, or the shop ha ha.”
