Ok, where do I begin? My husband made reservations to surprise me with a tea service here today for Valentine's Day. He was asked if there were any specific special dietary requests, he told them no pork products of ANY kind, so what did they do, in the selection of sandwiches, they put on toasted HAM and cheese. Ok, that aside, the desserts served with tea sandwiches were stale. The macaroons they had on the plate were so old, that my front teeth hurt trying to bite down on them, and I left it on the plate with teeth marks in the cookie part, I wasn't going to try to bite through and chew and swallow that. The meringue which looked pretty, was too dried out and they put in too much vanilla extract. They had an interesting selection of teas and we each got a teapot of our own, wrapped in a tea cozy. Problem is that the tea was initially wonderfully hot, after the 3rd cup, it started getting cold and was basically lukewarm. (Here is a tip, you ought to keep boiling hot water in the teapots to warm the ceramic all the way through before you dump that out to serve the piping hot tea inside it. The tea cozy along is NOT enough). He had requested a quiet spot for us, but it's as if we were seated in the butlers pantry with the servers coming and going, taking utensils and tea cups from the cupboards making a racket. And for gods sake, please get that piano tuned!! Hearing QUEEN, "We are the Champions" on an out of tune piano accompanied by a violin was not what either of us had in mind. After exchanging a look with my husband, I said to him jokingly, "...do you think they take requests and will play Bohemian Rhapsody?" I don't know if they heard me or it was coincidence, but that was the next song on the woeful out of tune piano. The soup had only 2 choices (though the menu had offered other selections) and the choice of cream of asparagus or broccoli and cheese were my only options. I chose the broccoli, but it was too salty. Onto the different teacups and utensil settings on the table. I know the were going for a Victorian look with different patterns, but it just looked cluttered. The utensils were silver-plate, the tarnished look on what ought to have been polished had me shaking my head. The Victorian era was all about etiquette and especially setting a proper table. All these things distracted from it. Finally, we got up to leave. I didn't know it, but my husband had already prepaid for our afternoon tea service earlier in the week when he made reservations. He still left them a nice cash tip despite the not so great food and lack of attention to detail. We walked out to our car and our server followed us and said that we had not paid our bill. My husband was at this point really annoyed. He told the server that it had been put on his card and he wasn't paying a second time. Then the owner comes out and says, nope that they have no record of him paying. After a few minutes of looking through, they finally find that my husband DID pay. At $39/person plus tip, this was a shameful way to treat customers. My husband ought to actually get a refund due to lack of understanding how to treat customers. If you are asking about dietary restrictions, you ought to ACTUALLY PAY ATTENTION and follow up with it. If a patron prepaid before even entering your establishment, a special notation ought to be put next to the name of the person who RSVP'd to keep from embarrassing your customer. We've been married a long time and I know if my husband paid or not, but what if this was a date for someone? Is it right to embarrass someone like this? Piss poor business management skills on your part. Not worth the time, gas/tolls and money spent on the afternoon "tea service". It's a shame. read more