Remote tea house in business 50 years

The right location is a key to business success, experts say, but a teahouse is celebrating its 50th anniversary despite being in the remote Canadian Rockies.

One might think convenience and steady walk-up traffic would be important to the survival of a tea shop. But enough people have been hiking the 4 miles into the mountains above Lake Louise in Alberta province through the decades to keep the Plain of Six Glaciers Teahouse going, retired owner Joy Kimball, 79, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Kimball said she bought the place after learning the previous owners were looking to sell. That was 1959.

This week, tourists and ex-employees are making the trek to the stone and log building constructed in 1927 by two Swiss brothers to celebrate the shop’s 50 years of serving tea and cookies.

We’re having a big dinner for all the ex-staff and people like that, said Kimball, who has relinquished the day-to-day operations to her daughter. We’re gonna have draws and give them free cookies and cake, things like that. Oh, (and) champagne, of course.