UPDATED REVIEW (28/01/2023) -- After I wrote my original review below on 10 March 2022 (which was based on my experience from my first visit in September 2021), I visited Tiger Lily Cafe again the very next day. So I visited Tiger Lily Cafe again, on 11 March 2022, the day after writing the below review. Much to my surprise, alot has changed since the cafe opened in September 2021. I visited a 3rd time on a Friday evening in October 2022 for a free comedy show in the Electric Gardens apartment lobby, which is also the lobby for Limelight Co-Working space, but the cafe had closed by the time I arrived.
The cafe surroundings/decor is still hip with all the original furniture still present. There is still a warm and inviting atmosphere as well. The lobby of the apartment complex cafe is still aesthetically pleasing to the eye and nice. It is still the same VERY small cafe with not much seating but there are sofas a few steps inside at the co-working apace lobby.
OWNERSHIP CHANGE -- Here is the issue. The cafe is no longer owned by Go Buddah. It is now owned by some corporate company or some person (I don't know).
Go Buddah was a vegan restaurant in Rocky River (Cleveland, Ohio) owned by Joshua Ingraham; however, Go Buddah sadly closed in 2020 or 2021. Joshua was the former Executive Chef of the Cleveland Indians baseball team, now named Cleveland Guardians.
Tiger Lily Cafe was sadly impacted by COVID-19 because they do not have many of their original cafe offerings. Infact, I glanced through some of Go Buddah's google reviews because Go Buddah used to own Tiger Lily and I found a response to a review where the customer did not have a great experience because the staff at Go Buddah wasn't too friendly. The owner commented in 2021:
"Our staff simply deserves better than this. The short answer is that after we lost everything during the pandemic we vowed to create a concept and company that would pay a living wage. I'm truly sorry for your experience, but for how hard our staff works this is frankly a slap in the face, especially after all that we have gone through."
Based on that above comment, you can definitely tell that Go Buddah was hurting and thus; it is no surprise that they pulled out of this Tiger Lily coffee shop business venture which is unfortunate.
CBD DRINKS -- The popular NON-ALCOHOLIC CBD drinks are no longer on the drinks menu, for now at least but I don't think they are ever coming back. The person working there when I arrived on that Friday evening in March 2022 didn't know when the CBD drinks will be back in stock. She didn't seem interested or have any information on if the drinks will ever be back. She said that the cafe did not have any of the ingredients anymore to make the drinks. The awesome Calypso Cocktail which is the only CBD drink that I've tried is no more.
The spark and original interest of Tiger Lily Cafe were the CBD drinks. With those CBD drinks no longer for sale, I am not too excited to visit anymore. If I simply want tea (I don't drink coffee), I'll go somewhere closer to where I live such as Lekko Coffee shop. However, if I'm in the Tremont neighbourhood area, I will definitely come here only because I enjoy sitting in the Electric Gardens apartment complex lobby. It's truly a gem and an awesome casual first date spot. read more