Serial entrepreneur with bad back slows it down
Stepping into RowSeeLee teahouse at 81 Main St. in Cold Spring is like entering a portal to another dimension.
On one hand, the juxtaposed interior is sleek, modern and bright, with shiny white-and-black tile floors that resemble marble. Futuristic French jazz bounces off the brick walls and a mesmerizing digital fireplace stretches half the length of the storefront.
Yet the flowing water, petrified birch trees, wooden tables and live terrarium with bright green moss lining the floor and a trough behind the wood-slatted booths smooth the harder edges.
For years, Jon Koon, 41, has shaped his high-end and conceptual retail outlets to draw on all five senses. (For a quick summary, see his Wikipedia entry.) Lately, he’s slowed down. Instead of jetting all over the world to make the scene at fine art and designer fashion events with bold-name celebrities, he shuttles from Cold Spring to his other tea parlor in Mahopac, which opened last year.
RowSeeLee is a phonetic representation of the name Rosie Lee, a term in Cockney English rhyming slang that refers to a cup of tea.
Conversing with Koon can be like pulling the rip cord on an outboard motor. In his telling, life unfolded like an action movie: He says that Hollywood exaggerated his lifestyle to create the Fast and Furious franchise after he became a millionaire at age 16 by modding four-cylinder Japanese cars and racing them on the mean streets of Queens.
With the right gear, “I can beat a Porsche,” says Koon, whose career also mirrors a VH1 Behind the Music episode about rise, fall and resurrection. This one stars the only child of hardworking immigrants from Hong Kong who urged him to be a doctor or lawyer but who instead became an artist helming international brands and opening buzzy retail outlets with the rich and famous. Then, he’s laid low — not by drugs, in this case, just a bad back.
“I worked so hard hunching over a drafting board or a drawing while designing clothes that I ruptured two-thirds of my discs,” says Koon.
After buying a home in Putnam County and downshifting, Koon is doing more fishing. But as a serial entrepreneur, he created the RowSeeLee brand, which includes candy, fragrances and retro T-shirts.
The spiffy spot, formerly the home of Cape Cod Leather and the Cold Spring Candy Co., is a lightning rod. One merchant says: “He must’ve spent half a million dollars. How many cups of tea would you have to sell to pay that off?” A visitor offers: “It doesn’t seem like it belongs in Cold Spring.”
Koon dismisses these sentiments: “Food and beverage employs more people than any other sector on Earth and, now that the pandemic is over, people are going back out to eat. I noticed that the subcategory ‘alternative drinks’ priced at $3 to $10 that people buy even when they’re not thirsty spiked upward, and the needle sticking up the highest is alternative tea.”
On a recent Saturday soon after RowSeeLee opened, a parade of people skewing young plunked down $6.95 to $8.95 for fruit tea, slush tea, milk tea and fresh milk tea. Fine tea (cold and hot brew) is $4.50 to $6.50.
Koon is especially bullish on bubble tea, which he said is expected to become a $6 billion global industry. The shop also offers coffee, matcha, four kinds of sandwiches and desserts.
Though Koon intended the Cold Spring location to be his flagship, the venture became mired in red tape because the building’s former owner, the nonprofit Knights of Columbus, had to clear the deed transfer with New York State.
Koon and his team built and designed the interior, including the furnishings and artwork, based on his technical drawings for “every tile, piece of wood and sprig of moss down to the millimeter.”
During his heyday, “I never stayed in one city for more than 14 days straight,” he says. “When my back went out, it humbled me. My body isn’t a rubber band, so I can’t keep running around like I did. I have to be more selective with my energy and calm down a bit.”
RowSeeLee, at 81 Main St., is open Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. See rowseelee.com or call 845-809-5788.
