Today we’d like to introduce you to Bryan Arturo.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Bryan. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I have been an entrepreneur all my life, from producing my own 12-day sustainability bus tour to helping clients with their marketing needs. After selling my business to my co-founder, I decided to do what brought me the most joy for a while- and that was creating a space where people could mingle and enjoy non-alcoholic drinks together.
The modern concept of free “tea lounge” is nothing new. Music festivals throughout the world often feature a lounge as a space to get away from the loud music and relax for a bit. I was participating at a festival in Costa Rica when my friend invited me to serve tea for the evening. I ended up pouring drinks for guests for eight hours straight, I was completely hooked. I realized that meeting new people and being the bright smiling face that welcomes people into a space naturally lifts me up and brings me joy. With all my newfound free time I decided to launch my passion project, The Serendipity Lounge. I slowly thrifted and upcycled most of my gear and brought my lounge to private parties, conferences, and festivals. Each time a slightly larger gathering would book us, I upgraded my gear. Fast forward to today, and my team and I have served at Summit LA, Ojai Sanctuary, Lightning in a Bottle, multiple Boochcraft celebrations, and our next event is with The San Diego Union-Tribune.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has been very smooth along the way! In the beginning, my network knew me as an event producer so I had to get the word out that I was now bringing lounges to existing events. I started doing events for free for several months and was having so much fun it didn’t phase me. Six months into doing free lounges and not making much money off our cacao sales, I finally decided to request a minimum fee for our participation. This led to fewer events but they were all more extravagant events allowing us to bring more servers and more fun!
When I first started, I wanted a playful name and I didn’t think we would become a full-fledged business. I kept asking guests what our name should be and someone came up with SerendipiTea Lounge. I did a quick search, didn’t see a trademark, and found what I thought was a small tea shop on the east coast with an outdated website called “SerendipiTea”. A few months later, I received a cease and desist letter, it turns out the company has existed for over 20 years and has a global market. I thought, oh well! At least we are getting noticed! We then decided to change our name to Serendipity Lounge.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Serendipity Lounge story. Tell us more about the business.
The Serendipity Lounge is a cozy space for delightful conversations. Rest assured, your cups will never be empty and your heart will be full of love and laughter. We serve herbal tea from Warmii and healthy mushroom elixirs from Four Sigmatic with caffeinated and non-caffeinated options. Enjoy all the funky odds and ends to play with on our tables and stay warm in our canvas bell tent!
Here’s a sample menu:
– Cacao & Reishi
– Matcha & Lions Mane
– Turmeric Chai
– Amazonian Guayusa
– Coffee & Cordyceps
– Chaga
We bring all the gear to fill a space, including custom tea tables, a full set of memory foam pillows (completely upcycled), and fun interactive objects on the table such as custom made tung drums from SD and Russia, essential oil blends, finger massagers, conversation card games, crystals, and more.
Imagine you’re going to a party or a conference and you don’t know a single person. How do you strike up a conversation? Where do you go to do so? Imagine finding a calm space with soft glowing lights and intricately decorated tables. A few people are drinking out of adorable miniature glass cups, you wonder what they’re drinking. As you approach and sit down, a host welcomes you and offers to taste different healthy elixirs you’ve never tried before. Everyone at the table is welcoming and you strike up a conversation with new friends. This is the basic concept that is winning people over- create an environment where everyone feels comfortable to be themselves and engage with others. If the conversation lulls, there’s plenty to play with on the table. We noticed that some people want to hang out and may not want to drink anything. For this reason, we obtained four steel tung drums that turn into their own musical-fun-zone. This is a space where friends enjoy taking mallots and playing together at the same time.
When we first started serving tea, I was living on a 2.5 acre homestead and farm in Fallbrook. I harvested lemongrass, tulsi, and rosemary from the land to make herbal tea for guests on a budget. Over time, we wanted to serve even healthier options and differentiate ourselves from normal tea lounges. We reached out to our friends at Four Sigmatic and outfitted ourselves with all of their mushroom elixirs. If you haven’t caught on to the latest superfood, not all mushrooms taste like the ones you see at the grocery stores. There are hundreds of edible mushrooms and the organic mushrooms we serve in our elixirs are incredibly healthy and adaptogenic, such as lion’s mane, cordyceps, chaga, and reishi. Since this switch, we decided to change from calling ourselves a tea lounge to an elixir lounge.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I don’t think so! All of my years hustling as an event producer paid off when creating a new business where I could serve fellow event producers.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://serendipitylounge.com
- Email: tealoungelove@gmail.com
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/serendipity_lounge
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SerendipityMobileLounge/
Getting in touch: SDVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
