Moments & Memories Tea Room — Restaurant in Beechworth

We visited on a Sunday afternoon. The cafe is next to The Hibernian. It had hosted a high tea - looked like it had been quite the party - and most of the smaller tables had guests enjoying a late lunch.

We went there for the scones (having Googled 'best scones in Beechworth'). They were lovely. We ordered a mix of plain and pumpkin. The cream was whipped quite stiff, which was perfect. Coffee was also nice.

They split bills, which we appreciated. We paid about AUD36 all together for a very pleasant afternoon tea.

The staff seemed friendly and caring toward their customers and each other (based on what we noticed); it was very refreshing.

Payment can be in cash or by card and there is a public holiday surcharge but I cannot remember the amount.

Street parking right out the front.

The decor is very frilly and light pink, with loads and loads of tea pots and tea sets along every wall. Quite busy, but also charming. There are some items for sale and some very lovely collectible sets that are not for sale. The cafe has a quirky thing going on with lots of signs and instructions that have been carefully composed with a personal touch. For example, the toilet has two signs. One as you walk in to remind you to lock the door to avoid being interrupted, and another on the back of the toilet door to remind you that if you haven't locked the door, you might not be alone for long. Even the menu has a lot of clarifying detail, as if the author has tried to cater for every possible variation. The funny thing was that my friend asked for a variation not covered in the super detailed menu...

Go for the food and friendly service, it...

Unpleasant experience in the entire lead up to being seated unfortunately. We understood they were short staffed, and so arrived with patience in mind.

We arrived for breakfast at approximately 10:45am, baring in mind they state that breakfast finishes at 11am. We were told that breakfast had ended already as 'it was 11am', when clearly it wasn't. The couple who arrived prior to us were also disappointed and made sure to raise this.

We decided to order a Devenshire Tea (2 scones and a pot of tea) to share. We were charged an extra $1 just for the privilege of sharing! We were then informed that we weren't "allowed" to share a pot of tea!

The icing on the cake moment - the table for 2 at the window had become available. We did ask at the start if we could take this table when it became available. We asked whilst we were ordering (no mess had been made at our current table), if we could move tables. The waitress (short brown hair and glasses) huffed and said 'are you serious?' as she looked at the table that needed clearing. Fortunately, there was one lovely lady (grey hair) serving who was more than happy to clear the table and was very pleasant when bringing out our scones.

I was looking forward to giving this tea house a great review, but unfortunately, as much as the scones were nice, the majority of the service left...

We were not the right customers for this venue.

We called in for a late breakfast while travelling through Beechworth to find the options were limited due to the time we were dining. We were disapointed to find that the breakfast menu finishes at 11 and lunch menu does not commence until 12. The hour in between is cake, piklets, scones waffles and what ever is on the special board. Despite this, after arriving at 11.20 it was well after 12 when the first part of our order landed.

The piklets I ordered were quite good but extremely slow service didn't see us leaving to continue our journey until almost 1pm with my tea requested in a takeaway cup, as it had yet to be served.

A note on the table indicated service is slow, so I guess this is the norm and would suggest that this is a passion project rather than a for profit business.

A lovely spot if you have the time to spare and are looking for a relaxed tea room experience. If you are swinging by for food to be served in a reasonable timeframe, this isn't the...