{"id":23690,"date":"2021-03-24T09:48:46","date_gmt":"2021-03-24T16:48:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/?p=30000019230"},"modified":"2021-03-25T08:59:50","modified_gmt":"2021-03-25T15:59:50","slug":"downtown-veteran-owned-coffee-and-tea-shop-to-close-for-good-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/news\/downtown-veteran-owned-coffee-and-tea-shop-to-close-for-good-this-weekend","title":{"rendered":"Downtown veteran-owned coffee and tea shop to close for good this weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last days that you can grab a cold brew or a sandwich at Long Beach Coffee & Tea will be this weekend as the Downtown cafe announced that it would be closing its doors permanently after nearly three years of business.<\/p>\n

In a Facebook post Tuesday morning, the shop said its last days of business will be Friday and Saturday, when it will be hosting a flash sale of cold brew growlers, tea tins and food, according to the statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe gave it our best shot,\u201d the post said. \u201cWe know it\u2019s been tough on a lot of people, not just us but we had to make the difficult decision before we found ourselves losing everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shop was launched in 2018 by military veterans Tom West and Shannon Francis with hopes of both filling the community with tasty coffees and sandwiches, but also to meet a higher need. The two hoped to form a nonprofit that could help connect transgender adolescents and teens with transgender adults<\/a> who have gone through the struggle of connecting with their identity.<\/p>\n

Over the years the shop and its patrons have donated clothing, meals and encouragement to the veteran community. The shop also hosted an annual \u201cAngel Tree\u201d event<\/a> where community members could pick an ornament off a Christmas Tree with items that a veteran was in need of and return the items to help veterans during the holidays.<\/p>\n

While the coffee and tea shop is closing, the two owners are moving on to focus on a nonprofit they\u2019ve founded to help military veterans and K9s transition from service-life to life as civilians.<\/p>\n

\u201cOperation: Transition Outside the Wire\u201d will operate on a ranch that the couple plans to build<\/a> in Northern Arizona where it hopes to accept its first veterans later this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the coffee and tea shop is closing, the two owners are moving on to focus on a nonprofit they\u2019ve founded to help military veterans and K9s transition from service-life to life as civilians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":71510,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2002],"tags":[3,31850],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[2772],"class_list":["post-23690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-instagram","tag-business-closure","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23690"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=23690"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=23690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}