Where Thayer Street's Regulars Went After a Year of Closures

Ten One Tea House has hired some new "bobaristas." Shift supervisor Pedro Umana told the Brown Daily Herald that the new hires used to work at the boba shops that closed on and around Thayer Street this summer. He also said the closures have been "great for business."

Four places to eat and drink closed in the Thayer area between May and July. For three of them, the shops still open nearby report picking up business, so much of that demand stayed on College Hill. Meanwhile, Thayer's longer-running vacancies, including the former Starbucks, Berk's and Spectrum India spaces, are going to businesses the street didn't have: a Jewish deli, a used bookstore, a second deli, and a coffee chain new to Rhode Island. The street has fewer copies of the same shop and more shops it didn't have before.

The Summer Closures and Where Their Customers Went

The Herald listed the four closures in a September 17 report. Here they are with what the shops nearby have seen since:

The Bagel Gourmet numbers show the pattern most clearly. Manager Guillermina Perez told the Herald that the Thayer shop closed after its rent got too high. She said the Meeting Street location is "exactly the same" apart from having more room, and she called the closure a "good decision." The chain started in downtown Providence 30 years ago and still runs the Meeting Street and downtown shops. The Thayer closure removed one of two counters selling the same bagels a short walk apart.

Kung Fu Tea closed for a different reason. In early May the shop posted on Instagram that it would close "due to building redevelopment." Tracy Kelleher, property manager for Walter Bronhard Realty, which owns the building, told the Herald that Thayer's commercial spaces "didn't seem to rebound since COVID." She said the company let the shop's owner out of his lease and that demolition and redevelopment began shortly after. That site is the last section of this post.

Two Landlords Are Picking the Replacements

Much of Thayer is controlled by a small number of property owners. Two of them have said publicly how they choose tenants.

Dulgarian Properties holds several properties on the street, including 218 and 252 Thayer. Senior vice president Harrison Dulgarian told the Brown Daily Herald that "a few dozen places" were interested in the former Starbucks space at 218 Thayer. He said the company picked Blank Street because "they obviously have a strong standing financially" and because it would "go well with the community." He also said the former Andrea's space has drawn "over a dozen letters of intent."

Brown University owns the building at the corner of Thayer and Meeting. John Luipold, Brown's vice president for business affairs, auxiliary services and real estate, wrote to the Herald that "Brown looks for new and distinct concepts that complement both the campus and the broader local community" when it chooses retail tenants.

When a dozen or more applicants want one storefront, the landlord gets to choose. Dulgarian has pointed to financial standing and community fit, and Brown to concepts that are new and distinct. The newest openings fit those descriptions.

What Has Opened Since Spring

Maven's Jr. opened in early April. Owner and founder Jason Sugarman opened the first Maven's Deli in Pawtucket in 2023. He described the Thayer location to the Brown Daily Herald as a "modern traditional Jewish deli." The meat is hand-cut and cooked on site, the bread is made from scratch, and the menu includes potato latkes and the Hot Maven, a sandwich inspired by schnitzel. Inside are two arcade games and a flapboard that spells out a new joke every few minutes. Sugarman also owns the Pokeworks on Thayer. He told the Herald that the location "was picked for a reason" and that "we want to be (on) a corner."

Rodney's Bookstore opened August 28 at the corner of Thayer and Meeting, in the space Berk's Shoes & Clothing left in early 2025. Its floor-to-ceiling shelves hold used books. Owner Shaw Taylor founded Rodney's in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1995 and named it after his dog. He told the Brown Daily Herald that "a bookstore needs to be in an area where people are walking by at a constant rate." He said Thayer has that "because of Brown, (and) also because Providence needed another bookstore." He also said Brown didn't want a bookstore at first.

Both businesses came to Thayer for its foot traffic, and neither one duplicates a shop already on the street.

What's Moving In Over the Winter

None of these have confirmed opening dates. Here they are in the order their own timelines suggest:

1. Blank Street, 218 Thayer St. Vinay Menda and Issam Freiha started this Brooklyn coffee and matcha chain in 2020 with a coffee cart, and it now has more than 100 shops in the U.S. and the U.K. This will be its first Rhode Island location, in the corner space Starbucks left after closing abruptly in 2025. Dulgarian told the Herald that everything in the space will be new, including the electricity, heating, plumbing and barista machines. On October 5 he guessed it would take "two to three months to open," which points to around the start of the new year. The Providence Journal still listed it as planned in an October 18 update.
2. Georges on Thayer, 252 Thayer St. Georges Makhlouf is taking the space that Spectrum India and, before it, the College Hill Bookstore occupied. He owns Nara on Atwells Avenue and, according to Dulgarian, was a tenant on Elmgrove Avenue with East Side Bagel for a number of years. GoLocalProv reported on October 15 that Dulgarian called it a deli concept and said the owners are "working very quickly." Ten days earlier, the Herald had reported that Dulgarian described the tenant as a restaurant selling Italian food. The menu will settle which description is right.
3. Brown Bee Coffee, Waterman and Brook streets. Brown Bee opened on Benefit Street in 2024 and is now adding a smaller second cafe with a takeout window. Manager Anjolina Huang told the Brown Daily Herald she hopes it will be open "by early next year at the latest." She said it will serve the same drinks and start with a smaller pastry selection. She also said the Benefit Street shop is "quite a trek" for Brown students.

Count the coffee shops. Starbucks and Aroma Joe's have closed. Blank Street and a second Brown Bee are on the way, with Caffe Nero still open in between. By spring the number of coffee counters near Thayer could be about where it was two years ago, but the lineup will be different: a chain's first Rhode Island shop and the second shop of a local cafe, in place of two national brands.

The Block Where the Next Storefronts Are Going

The Brown Bee location ties into the rest of the street. Its second cafe will be on the ground floor of The Carlyle, an apartment building at the corner of Waterman and Brook. Developer Walter Bronhard built The Carlyle. According to the Providence Journal, Bronhard is also the developer behind the next building on that block.

Demolition of the Rufus Waterman House at 108-110 Waterman St., the building that held Kung Fu Tea, started around August 28. By September 1 the three-story house was rubble sitting on its masonry cellar. A 35-unit mixed-use building will replace it.

So the part of College Hill where Kung Fu Tea closed is also where new street-level space is being built. The Carlyle's ground floor is getting a coffee shop. The building replacing the Rufus Waterman House is planned as mixed-use, so it will add commercial space a block off Thayer. If that space fills the way the rest of the street has this year, the tenants will be businesses the landlords see as stable and different from what's nearby, much like the Thayer storefronts that have reopened since spring.

If you own a mixed-use or small multifamily building near Thayer and want to understand how this year's tenant turnover affects what it's worth, Lindsay Pettinelli can look at your property as both a broker and a licensed contractor. Request a Free Home Valuation, and we'll go over the commercial and residential sides of the building together.