The owner of this establishment, Pandora Randall,
is in my opinion so rude and unprofessional, so devoid of the sensibilities that make a good Tea House owner, or restauranteur, that I can't understand how she manages to remain in business. Pretty Building becomes Trojan Horse for Tea Lovers, I guess.
She may claim to have been busy that day.
However, no-one should ever behave that way to another person, certainly not in any Customer Service capacity. It would not appear that she knows the meaning of "hospitality"
Her whole demeanor was aggressive, accusatory, and condescending.
My 12-year-old daughter said
"They're treating US like second class citizens because THEY put us at the 'wrong table' "
Half the current staff belongs at a truck stop or a fast food joint. They even passed off old pastries to us (unless they are still putting turkeys on their new
desserts).
We had made an initial reservation, but my daughter got out of her minor surgery early so we then called, an hour early, to ask if they could take us early. They said it would be 'no problem' with such a small party,
"come on in now". So we came on in...
They sat us down without delay, but then made us wait 45 minutes for our tea and food. The waitress fairly threw the food down on the table with hardly a second glance. They failed to bring us any condiments. We had to ask them for each standard menu item. Then within 10 minutes of first giving us our tea they came up and dropped all the courses on the table at once, and announced to us that they "needed" our table,
and they were "moving us" to another table!
Understand we were at a deuce, and they were asking us to move to another deuce across the restaurant. I still don't understand why they couldn't just use the other table. When we objected, the owner came flying over to the table like a harpy, and accused us of disrupting their reservation schedule. She brought her reservation book over, and waved it at me as she gabbled on about why two lowly persons like ourselves should naturally do her bidding.
We advised her that we were not finished with our table, did not appreciate her attitude, that we intended to finish our meal at the same table, and that if her staff had brought us our food in a timely fashion we would have likely already been finished with our Tea, and her "problem" (which should have remained her problem) would have been solved.
If I could give this place negative stars I would.
I had previously had some good experiences here,
but clearly the staff has changed over for the worst,
and Ms. Randall is letting her dark side show.
I have had several episodes of the declining quality of experience here which has reached a low point in this one. I have given them several chances to redeem themselves, because they are so close to my house.
My Dear Daughter and I enjoy Tea Time together, especially when she has a "Little Victory" to celebrate,
or has had a difficult experience, in this case a minor surgery.
To add injury to insult, this meal cost the most I have paid for our Afternoon Tea in seven years!
My Dear Daughter advised me thoughtfully as we left saying,
"I don't ever want to come back here, Mom".
Not to Worry, Darling!
Pros: Good Reputation
Cons: No longer lives up to it's"Good Reputation", $$$$
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