Fighting FOR TILLY’S TEA ROOM From threat of deportation to the third floor of Saks Fifth Avenue words: Charity Singleton Craig | photography: Lauren McDuffie
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ew friends and acquaintances often ask Sharon Moore, owner of Tilly’s Tea Room, if it was always her dream to open a tea shop. Especially when they see how at home she looks sitting on the velvet settee sofa in front of the textured black and white damask wallpaper, or discover how she learned to make clotted cream and jams to accompany scones and fill out cheese boards. But the start-up story of Tilly’s, named after Moore’s 10-year-old daughter Matilda, actually involves more fight song than fairy tale. In fact, Tilly’s served as Moore’s Hail Mary effort to stay in the United States when faced with a divorce and deportation that would separate her from her U.S.–born children.
A Tale of Two Visas When Moore, a native of Newcastle, England, came to Indianapolis in 2003, she was married and working as a camera operator with Champ Car World Series, which was eventually merged into the IndyCar series. Later, Moore left her career to have and raise her children, Matilda, now 10, and Max, now 8, both of whom were born in the United States and are U.S. citizens. A few years later, however, when Moore divorced she no longer had a visa that allowed her to stay and work in the country. After consulting with an immigration attorney, Moore concluded that she had only two options. The first was to return to England for a year, possibly without her children, and reapply for her former work visa. Or she could open a business under an investor visa program. “But I couldn’t open a TV production company because I didn’t have that type of money to do that,” Moore explains. “So I had to open up a business on a shoestring that would pass immigration standards, have two American employees, allow me to not travel and offer the flexibility I needed to raise a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old.”
Worth the Risk
From left to right: Max Moore, Sharon Moore and Matilda (Tilly) Moore at Tilly’s Tea Room in Saks Fifth Avenue
Moore had always been a foodie, regularly hosting dinner parties for friends and colleagues. She also knew from her own experience how difficult it was to go out to eat or to meet a friend for coffee with young children in tow. So she came up with the idea for a family-friendly café with a playroom for children. “But I thought, ‘I’m English, so let’s do a tea room.’ But any tea room I’d been to around here was stuck in the edibleINDY.com
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