Dear Mark C.,
I found the Quirky Royal Tea Room on YELP, however
I pray that the commumity won't risk their health by eating at your restaurant. I came to your so called Tea Room on Dec. 14, 2025, with two of my dear friends to celebrate a birthday. It started out with us having a terrible time just finding your location. There is absolutely no signage on your store front and its very apparent that you must be struggling, due to your choice of being in a very run down strip mall.
You say on your Yelp site that your Tea Room is classy, however, what we walked into was not the case at all. I would say it's very "tacky ". And, what is very interesting is that most of the pictures on the Yelp app. are a misrepresentation of your Tea Room. It doesn't look anything like where we were expecting. Except, for the pictures with the pink walls. What a disappointment for my myself and my friends birthday celebration. The food appeard to be all store bought, even though you say you have a baker on site. That is really hard to believe, based on what we experienced.
The tea wasn't even warm and and what else surprised me was that the napkins were paper and the water cups were plastic. Yet, here's the aweful part, we had to rush one of my friends to the hospital. Approximately half-way through our meal, one of my friends had to be rushed away due to a sudden and horrible stomach ache, severe pains, a complete loss of facial color, and she could no longer sit in her chair. All she wanted to do was to lay down. We almost called 911, not knowing what was happening. It was that bad. Shortly after arriving at the hospital, she was diagnosed by an emergency room doctor with a case of food poisoning. It was confirmed that she hadn't eaten anything so far that day, except the food items at the Tea Room.
She ultimately had a stomach ache and cramps for almost a week, following this incident.
Just a few days later, our birthday girl also went to the hospital ER with stomach cramps, and ultimately had to spend 3 days in the hospital herself. In a later conversation between the 3 of us, we recalled that two us had in fact eaten the same lunch meat sandwiches. I did not eat these sandwiches and never felt these ill symptoms.
Once my friends felt better, we went to talk to yourself, since you were confirmed to be the manager in charge. We made you aware, Mark C., that we in fact had documentation from the ER doctor that our friend had food poisoning from her only meal that day. Upon presenting our situation with Mark C. in a very calm and polite manner, explaining to him our experience that particular day, we simply wanted him to refund our $130 spent for that meal that day. At this moment in time, she hadn't even mentioned the cost for the ER hospital visit. It was only our intention to recover the cost of the meal.
Shortly after our initial meeting with Mark, he became very rude to us. He kept insisting that there is no way she could have received food poisoning from this restaurant, saying that it takes a full 24 hours for symptoms to occur. In doing some research, this is what I found:
"Food poisoning can strike from as quickly as 30 minutes (like with Staphylococcus aureus toxins) to several days or even weeks later (like Listeria or Cyclospora), depending on the germ or toxin, with common bacteria like Salmonella or E. coli often causing symptoms within hours to a couple of days. Viruses like Norovirus usually appear within 12-48 hours".
Shortly after, in the same conversation, Mark told us to take him to court, to which we were very shocked that a manager and business owner would respond to us in the manner. It was at this time that we suggested we may report him to the Board of Health and let them sort this out. We simply wanted our money back and then we would then leave without so much nonsense. There absolutely was no bargaining with you Mark C, or the big words you seem to like to throw around like extortion and blackmail. All over $130. Shame on this man! read more