Molly's Tea Room To Close At End Of December
After nearly 16 years of business, Molly’s Tea Room on Main Street in Falmouth will close its doors later this month.
The tea room was originally opened in 2006 by sisters Paula and Mandi Haddon and has been a staple in the culture of Falmouth’s Main Street ever since. But in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Molly’s has found that the economic hardships it induced are too great to bounce back from.
“It was obviously one of the hardest decisions we’ve made, but COVID has just financially destroyed us,” Paula Haddon said. “We can’t recover from it.”
Molly’s Tea Room was forced to close in March 2020 when the first wave of the pandemic swept the nation and was able to reopen four months later in July but under a much more limited capacity. Ms. Haddon says that even reopening proved to be a challenge because their small space can only accommodate so many people to begin with, and that number was further limited due to COVID protocols.
“It was very, very limited for quite some time, and it was tricky,” she said.
Since announcing their closure on December 15, Ms. Haddon said that support from the community, both in-person and online, has been abundant and that the store has actually been quite busy with patrons dropping by one last time before the tea room closes its doors for good.
“Everyone has been just wonderful,” she said. “It just means so much to us because we really are thankful to be part of the Falmouth community. And to hear all the nice, wonderful comments [online], where it’s just an outpouring of how upset people are that we’re leaving and they’ve loved it here, it makes us feel really great about that. We’re just as sad as they are. But it feels really great to know that people have enjoyed our place.”
“We just want to thank everyone over all these years for coming in and supporting us. We’ve made really great friends—not only customers but friends—and we just are so appreciative of everyone. We’ve been embraced by the community, and we’ve just loved being here and we thank everybody.”