The Tea Party, a rock band formed in Windsor in 1990, received the Key to the City from Mayor Drew Dilkens on Friday, July 10, 2026, in a ceremony at the Rocket Innovation Studio, the former site of the Coach & Horses music venue where the band played sold-out shows in the early 1990s.
Homecoming honour after decades of global success
The trio — guitarist and frontman Jeff Martin, bassist and keyboardist Stuart Chatwood, and drummer Jeff Burrows — has sold nearly three million albums worldwide, including more than one million in Canada, over a 35-year career. They have toured extensively across Canada and internationally, building a reputation for blending hard rock with blues, progressive rock, and Middle Eastern influences.
“We’re Windsor boys at heart,” Chatwood said. “And just travelling the world, representing Windsor as The Tea Party, it was just great to come home and know the city has our back and recognizes us. It’s just a really warm feeling inside for us.”
Ceremony at historic venue
The event took place in the basement of 156 Chatham Street West, now occupied by Rocket Innovation Studio. The building holds special significance for the band, as they recorded their independent album in a second-floor space there. “Selling out the Coach in the basement, we realized what we had was special,” Burrows recalled.
The band embarked on the largest Canadian tour of its career in 2025 and performed to a sold-out audience at Sydney’s Opera House with a 50-piece orchestra earlier this year. Martin, who now lives in Australia, said: “We’ve been around the world many times now, but to come back home and to receive this honour, it’s truly a humbling experience. It’s just been a wonderful, wonderful journey.”
Mayor praises band’s impact
Mayor Dilkens highlighted the band’s contribution to the city’s reputation. “The Tea Party has brought high esteem to the city of Windsor and our region,” he said. “If you go back to the ’90s and you talk to people who are sort of from my generation and followed The Tea Party growing up, and you’ve watched the band members and what they do, there’s no doubt that they’ve earned the Key to the city today.”
Burrows reflected on the band’s early days: “This building itself, we’ve had many a-long evenings. We recorded our independent album here. And just the fever that the fans had for an independent local band. We took it to London and Toronto, and we just grew from there, but to have that support (in Windsor), we just knew it was going to work out some day.”
