Hopetoun Tea Rooms renamed, but issue over old name lingers
The much-loved Hopetoun Tea Rooms has undergone a name change after a bitter dispute between its previous owners and the Block Arcade management. But one issue still remains.
Victoria
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One of Melbourne’s most popular culinary venues will undergo a name change, but an issue over the old name threatens to linger.
The business that ran Hopetoun Tea Rooms in the Block Arcade has been liquidated after a protracted legal dispute, and it’s believed that a new owner is planning to reopen it with the same name at a different location.
Meanwhile, Block Arcade management wants to keep the tea rooms going in the current spot, but can’t use the Hopetoun name.
However, arcade managing director Grant Cohen is adamant that the historic Hopetoun Tea Rooms’ signs on the front window have heritage protection, and must stay.
“It’s not like he (the new Hopetoun name owner) is going into something he doesn’t know about,” he told the Herald Sun.
“It’s well documented, he understands it’s heritage protected, the liquidator can’t remove the signs, so nor would he be able to.”
“It’s clearly been a tea rooms for 128 years, it clearly will be a tea rooms moving on, it will have a different name - The Block Arcade Tea Rooms 1892.”
Mr Cohen fell out with the previous owners, Kon and Kellie Koutoumanos, over a failed expansion of the tea rooms.
His family went on to win a VCAT case over the issue, which led to the business being put into voluntary administration.
Mr Cohen said he was seeking a new operator for the tea rooms, but some of the former culinary staff would return to the business.
“As far as we’re concerned it will be absolutely business as usual, as far as people lining up in those queues outside, they won’t know any different,” he said.
Mr Cohen hosted Lord Mayor Sally Capp at the arcade this week, and revealed that some of the tea rooms’ tables will be set up under the arcade’s famous dome when restrictions are eased.
The arcade itself is getting a clean-up during the pandemic shutdown.
Mr Cohen said it was unfortunate that former tenant Beechworth Honey had had to leave the Block due to issues related to last summer’s bushfires.
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