The Old York Tea Room: Popular York cafe which operates 'at capacity' to expand with takeaway next to York Minster

A popular cafe in York that operates at full capacity with long queues of visitors will be expanding with a takeaway next to York Minster.

The Old York Tea Room, located in Goodramgate, was closed for three days last week due to the heatwave and reopened on Saturday, August 15, 2026.

It has been operating as a cafe for three and a half years and is owned by life partners Tony, 47, and Thomas Vickers, 46, who both live in York.

Over the years, the business has been thriving with queues of visitors lining up to eat there and it has grown so popular that Tony and Thomas are looking to expand.

“We've done really well actually, we're going from strength to strength,” Tony said.

“We have a huge social media following and York really seems to have our back and we're at capacity now.

“We're full all day every day with a queue outside. So it's brilliant, but we've realised that we need to expand now, so we're opening a second unit very soon.

“It's a very small tea room; we see 14 guests in total upstairs and we turn those tables over quite quickly because a lot of people just come for a coffee and a cake.

“Other people come for an afternoon tea and that's a good hour experience. We’re maybe turning over maybe a hundred tables a day, so there's never an unoccupied table.”

Its popularity has motivated Tony and Thomas to expand the business.

“What we've realised is that we do a lot of takeaway with cake because our cakes have become very popular, baked mostly by ourselves.

“What we're struggling with now is when we've got a queue outside of people wanting to sit in and dine in with us, people don't want to come in for takeaway because they feel like they're pushing past the queue and it's very difficult.

“It puts people off getting a takeaway. So what we realised pretty quickly is we need a second unit.

“We've set up a Facebook page for the new shop which we're hoping to open in October; work's already started on it and it has already gained 7,000 followers.

“A little scoop for you here, we're actually planning a third unit as well. We're planning a third unit but I'm not really going to give much away about that at the moment until we get the cake shop up and running.”

Tony said that 60 percent of their visitors are tourists and 40 per cent are locals.

“We get a lot of people researching us actually before they arrive to York,” he said.

“What a lot of people do these days is they actually google about where they're going which city they're going to and they actually do a bit of research.

“Whereas back in the day perhaps we just fly somewhere and walk around and find somewhere nice [that way].

“An afternoon tea is a special thing and it's a very English thing and I think a lot of international tourists want to experience that Britishness if you will.

“The building is so historical as well it's almost like, I don't want to speak cliche but, a living museum because they're also getting the history of the building but also a really traditional experience at the same time.”

The part of its history that mostly attracts people is the overhanging timber frame and its connection to Anne Lister.

“It's the oldest overhanging timber frame building in the whole country. You know that's quite a thing in its own right,” Tony said.

“It's also got the history connected with the Anne Lister event so Anne Lister got married in the church which is directly behind our building.

“That was considered the first ever lesbian wedding in the UK and it was in the 1800s. It wasn't even legal but the church did it anyway.”

Tony and Thomas decided to close the cafe for a few days during the heatwave due to not having an air conditioning system.

“A lot of people don't realise that the two rooms are housed inside one of the oldest overhanging houses in England and it was built in 1316,” Tony said.

“So we can't install air conditioning and we can't really do much to cool it down to be honest with you apart from putting a few fans on and opening the doors.

“Now the seating area we've got upstairs is actually okay when both windows are open and the fans are switched on. It's quite cool and it's quite comfortable for the guests. But downstairs where our kitchen is gets very very hot.

“If you take the temperature outside then add another 10 degrees on top that's what we're talking about. So it's very unbearable for ourselves and for the staff that are working there.

“It's just not appropriate to have us working in that kind of environment and most reasonable people would understand that, I believe.”

To make up for the three-day closure, they decided to open the cafe on Monday and Tuesday this week for the first time.

“As the temperatures have dropped, it just feels appropriate to be back up and as soon as possible,” Tony said.

“We don't normally open on a Monday or Tuesday, but we've decided to open Monday as an extra because obviously we've lost three days of trade.

“It's a difficult decision to close because obviously we lose takings and the bills keep coming, a lot of businesses are struggling.”