Camellias — Restaurant in Charleston

I love afternoon tea. When I travel anywhere I always look for a tea room that serves tea. It was our 15th Wedding Anniversary and it was a gift from my husband to have tea at Camellias. I called maybe a week in advance and told them of my husband eating restrictions (he is not allergic, just doesn't eat certain things such as bread.) I was told they would make a note of it and they needed to take my CC to hold the reservation. I gladly gave my information. I received two calls back to back days asking me about my CC info. I gave both mine and my husbands CC just to make sure everything was ok. I called back to ensure everything was ok with my husbands tray. I talk to Brittany and I was assured everything would be taken care of. She did a good job of trying to get things to run smoothly. So here is the terrible part. We stop at the pastry for my husband to get his sweets. It is sent to Camellias to be served with our tea. We get to Camellias and we are greeted by a girl name Ferdina? She brings me the tea and walks briskly away. Does not bring me any cream or sugar. She did have other tables so I waited until my tea was steeped and asked for help. She brought us scones and I am going to tell you that they were burnt with black on the edges. They were very dry so I asked for some preserves or jam. They did not have any. We received our tea try and it was great to see the pastries from the bakery we had ordered. Again, she brings us the tray tells what is on the try and walks away briskly. I watch our next table with admiration as there was another waitress with blonde hair taking care of a party of four. I watched her bring all the tea and cream and sugar all at once. I watched the waitress bring the tea tray over to her table and lovingly point to ever sandwich and desert on the tea tray. I watched her hold conversations with them. I watched my waitress holding a conversation with another guy with a pony tail. They were restocking the wine section behind the bar and having a wonderful conversation. When I made the reservation I also asked if we could be out at 3pm due to another appointment. I waited until 2:55 and our waitress was talking with another table. I got up and asked for help so that we could leave at 3pm. There was another girl with black hair training. I saw her go to the blond girl and ask for her help and the blond hair girl did nothing to help us. I can only assume it was because it was not her table. The guy with the pony tail tried to get the receipt and he came back and I saw that out total was triple the amount. I asked why and I was told that it was because the SAME food that is in the bakery is twice the amount at Camellias. WOW! I should have been told that. The only reason we had it sent over to Camellias was because Brittany said that it would all stay on one tab. NEVER did anyone ever mention the double amount of prices. I am going to be honest. I am the kind of person that when I am treated well, I will go over and beyond and call corporate and everything about the good customer experience. Unfortunately, I was not able to do that today. The lack of care and teamwork made this a horrible 15th anniversary treat. People have asked what we did and I am too embarrassed to tell them. If you are going for tea, please consider other options. There is Time Well Spent in Summerville and Twenty-Six and Devine in Charleston. Those local places give you great service and the food is delicious. Sometimes the fanciest is...

Camellias was a place I’d wanted to visit for a while. Looked like the perfect girl’s girl place for their coveted tea service or going for a celebratory glass of champagne, as the beautiful social marketing makes the aurora feel. Their website claims a strict dress code is enforced so I made sure when I finally went for a Galentines night out (not the ticketed event) but rather Saturday night, with my friend, we were dressed up accordingly. However, upon arrival we were already turned off that this elite marketed champagne bar was right off the lobby on the first floor, doors open, no host, encouraging anyone to come in. As we approached the open glass doors, the first thing we see is a man in a baseball cap and jeans sitting at the pink bar with a massive chandelier above him - lost as if he teleported from his local dive bar - no hate on the man - but girl’s girl night quickly was lacking the allure of what I had envisioned for this place. But we were here and had anticipated finally visiting this spot so we waited for the supposed host that would seat us, as we stared towards the bar staff to come over to assist us. We jointly ordered off one menu that was given for two people to observe and ordered our drinks. My friend got a cocktail she was pleased with, and I, a simple glass of Prosecco. We order the lobster sliders that were just okay as we people watched the room that was split between hotel guests who happen to stumble in, and the girl’s girls who saw the cute instagram posts and decided to make a night of it, or celebrate their bachelorette.

Now, the primary reason for my review isn’t actually to complain - rather make suggestions to match the atmosphere/vibe/aurora that the Hotel Bennett social media marketing has created as an expectation:

Actually have a host. Have the host greet people outside the closed doors. Cover the glass doors with pink velvet floor to ceiling drapes that set a more exclusive tone to match the extensive dress code that the website portrays. This way guests outside take interest to what’s inside and can inquire with the host for more information and the guests inside aren’t distracted by the traveling public of the hotel lobby - stopping at the front of the bar to take photos and ‘take a quick look’. Music: live soft music like a harp player on Friday's and Saturday’s would match the vibe, romanticism the interiors portray and soft jazz for background noise and privacy when live music is not available. The room is small and it was easy to hear everyone’s conversation around you or when someone stumbled in drunk to the...

My friends came to town a back in July, and one of them loves going to high tea. We decided to choose Camellias because of the tea selection. The tea itself was great and the place was cute. The staff however were extremely rude to us, and basically ignored us 80% of the time. We booked the reservation on their website, and we thought it was super odd that it didn't ask us about food restrictions, and we definitely looked for it. I'm a vegetarian who has a mushroom allergy, and both of my friends have a shellfish allergy. We told one of the staff members about me being a vegetarian, and he rudely stated that it didn't say that anywhere on our reservation and didn't even let us explain that we wanted to put that in our reservation, but there was literally no place to do that. We didn’t even get to tell the staff about our actual allergies, so we couldn't eat a decent proportion of the sandwiches and the like. We weren't the only table that had food restrictions and didn't find a place to enter those restrictions. The other group that also had that same issue was treated poorly as well. I don't know if the person who set up the booking online program checked to make sure everything was working properly on their site, but someone needs to. The food that we could eat wasn't worth the price, and my friend was a pastry chef for 10 years and there was one good dessert out of what was brought to us. For the price, the staff needs to have better manners, and listen to their customers concerns. We were all excited, got dressed up, and was just left...