In the heart of Carytown, there’s an eclectic tea shop with chests of dress-up clothes, a reading corner, and mouth-watering smells of pastries wafting through the air. It’s a place with open arms--it’s a place anyone in the community can call home.

Virginia Beach native and self-taught baker Anatash Werne moved to Richmond in 2016 with a dream and in spring 2017, they opened The Tottering Teacup. In college, Werne started off as a Chemistry major but then switched to English Education. A car accident freshman year of college left them with a head injury that has never fully healed and that forced Werne to re-evaluate their path. After giving it some thought, Werne realized that their life passion was baking.

*Tottering Teacup Owner Anatash Werne (via Facebook)*

“I’ve wanted to be a baker for as long as I can remember,” Werne said. “My parents have elementary school projects of mine saved that [read], ‘When I grow up, I’m going to be a baker!’ My high school yearbook quote, no joke, was ‘Changing the world one pastry at a time.’”

The Tottering Teacup boasts more than 40 flavors of teas and glass cases of pastries ranging from macarons to cake, tea sandwiches to scones and petit fours. Not a tea drinker? Werne offers other options such as coffee, lemonade, and rose lemonade. There’s an element of The Tottering Teacup though that helps it stand out from other tea shops and that’s inclusivity.

The Tottering Teacup does fundraising events for Side By Side, formerly ROSMY, which is a nonprofit that supports LGBTQ+ youth and community. Werne recalls for the first event, they made Pride Macarons and it was an emotional time for them because they hadn’t come out yet. They came out when they sent the email to Side by Side, asking if The Tottering Teacup could do a macaron fundraiser on the organization’s behalf.

Through the fundraising events, Werne and their staff have found that they are having more and more conversations with customers about different queer identities. Customers will come in and take selfies or quietly ask the staff, “Is it safe to hold hands in here?”

“We had parents tell us, through tears, that spaces like ours and Side by Side had saved their children’s lives,” said. “After so many stories like that, I felt pretty inspired to keep Teacup an explicitly queer-friendly place … I think everyone deserves to have spaces in this world carved out where they’re allowed to be unequivocally themselves.”

“Ideally, that place would at least include home, but I know that people aren’t always so lucky. Safe spaces can equate to physical, emotional, and mental safety for people. That’s important to me,” Werne added.

Werne works with the staff on de-gendering language on a daily basis and hangs Pride flags in The Tottering Teacup ever year. They also encourage staff to dress how they’d like and wear Pride-related accessories to show their support for the LGBT+ community.

For Werene, The Tottering Teacup has already accomplished so much more than they could’ve ever hoped for.

“The community connections and unexpected bonds we’ve made over tea and pastries have been so inspiring,” Werne said. “Looking ahead into the future, I’m hoping that more financial growth and stability means more community events for Teacup, higher pay for my employees, and more charitable donations to the causes we hold dear.”

The Tottering Teacup is located at 3222 W. Cary Street, Richmond, VA 23221. For more information, call 804-416-5330 or visit the website.

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