Batavia coffee shop to close

Batavia's Limestone Coffee & Tea will be shutting its doors at the end of the month.

“We're devastated,” owner Maureen Mares said Tuesday.

She said she found out a couple of weeks ago that her lease will not be renewed after four years at her downtown cafe.

She admits that she's had some problems making the rent on time and that a couple of checks have been returned, but she said she always has made good as quickly as possible. “I'm not proud of it. We've been late on the rent, but I still paid it every month,” she said. “We're doing the best we can.”

Despite the heartbreak she says she feels, she's been buoyed by the public reaction since announcing the closing on the café's Facebook page.

“People are upset. I've just been overwhelmed by the support we've gotten,” she said. “People are offering to help any way they can.”

Some of the offers have included storage units for the restaurant's equipment and marketing specialists who want to help with a possible reopening.

Mares says she'd like to find a new location in Batavia and that the city “has been extra helpful and supportive” directing her toward micro and retention loan programs that could be available to help her small business. There's even a fundraiser being planned by some of the artists from Water Street Studios, who have donated paintings to be sold at a benefit Nov. 19.

Mares said they've dealt with the down economy and the Wilson Street bridge project but that sales have gone up every year. After weathering the tough

times, she and her daughter Kendall Ertz, who runs the cafe with her, hope to find a suitable location downtown.

“We're going to do the best we can to figure something out,” she said, “and if it doesn't come to fruition it won't be because we didn't try.”