Teenage Entrepreneur Opens Unique Chinatown Shop

A small shop with blazing orange walls, in Chinatown on the edge of the Lower East Side (LES), features a unique product mix. Teenagers riding Citi Bikes pull up onto the sidewalk on Eldridge Street carrying large blue Ikea bags filled with sneakers to resell. Locals flow in to look over the diverse selection of sneakers and there’s also boba tea!

Solely Tea is New York City’s first boba tea and sneaker shop. Basic boba tea consists of tea, milk and tiny tapioca or cassava balls. But here colorful vibrant drinks are made with a various selection of flavors and toppings. It is the place where boba tea lovers and sneakerheads come together, or the place where people who have no knowledge of either meet.

Owner Kenney Zhang opened Solely Tea in May 2021 with his sister Amy Zhang when he was only sixteen. He brought his idea to life to expand his sneaker business. “Solely Tea is a product of hustling candy in high school,” said Kenney. “I took Chinese New Year money one year, bought a case of candy and started selling from there” Kenney said.

Kenney is like other entrepreneurial kids who grew up in low-income areas in Queens and Brooklyn. When they wanted extra money, they started hustling at a young age. Kenny moved from candy to sneakers the next year. There are big profit margins from selling sneakers like Jordans, Nike Dunks, New Balance and more. The sneaker business grew to a point where he was doing enough volume to open a retail location.

He wanted to make his store stand out from others in the city and decided to incorporate selling boba tea. “Boba to us Asian Americans is very personal because it was always a drink you got for breakfast with a pork bun, after school or as a treat if you got good grades,” said Kenney.

COVID in Kenney’s case had some benefits. After restrictions were lifted in New York City, rent became more affordable, There were also more available vacant stores, especially in Chinatown. “COVID helped our business,” said Kenney. With all the money people collected from unemployment while being cooped up in their homes, they also wanted to go out and try new things.

Born and raised mostly in Chinatown, Kenney said it made sense for him to come back to the area and reconnect with the community after living in Queens for a while. Chinatown is where his culture has been passed on through generations. Kenney is inspired by the old Chinese spots that have been through the worst of the worst but are still open.

“Wo Hop restaurant is iconic after being around for decades and I want Solely Tea to be an icon in this community,” Kenney said.

Throughout his business journey, Kenney received a lot of support from his friends and his two sisters. “They helped me out a lot physically, mentally and were supportive,” Kenney said.

With Kenney’s love for sneakers, he thinks that any person that comes in and purchases sneakers, puts them into the sneaker community. They dive deeper into what sneakers really mean. “Sneakers are culture. There are stories and complex ideas behind it that make it more than just a regular shoe on your foot,” Kenney said.

Solely Tea supplies and sources some of their sneakers through resellers. They believe in negotiating fair trade and providing the best prices. Their top selling styles are Air Jordan 1’s, Nike Dunks and Jordan 4’s. The top selling drink is “The Eddie” which contains passion fruit, peach, lychee and green tea. It was created and named after Kenney’s friend Eddie, who has been supporting the shop since it opened.

There are challenges to opening a business no matter what age you are. “You have to put things in action because you can’t just come up with ideas and not do anything with them,” Kenney said. He’s excited about being a pioneering businessman. “Someone might have the same idea and execute differently. That’s why it’s important to be the first,” he said.

You can visit the shop at 111 Eldridge Street. They are open from 11am-8pm every Tuesday-Sunday. For updates on their seasonal drinks and shoe stock, visit them on their instagram page @solelyteaa.