Pattea Lou's Tea Room — Restaurant in Keller

Train wreck with a capital TEA.

I seriously don't know where to start with this review as it was laughable how bad this place was. This has been by far my worst dining experience since moving to the area over 3 years ago.

I was taking my mom to tea for her birthday. I had made reservations in advance for 1 pm. They called the night before asking what tea towers we would want the next day. When we arrive we are told to sit in the cafe because our table was not ready yet. About 10 minutes later we are seated. There are three other tables occupied in the tea room while the other 6 tables are unbussed and full of dirty dishes. This remained this way for the remainder of our stay.

We placed our order for two pots of tea, the server let us know she knew what towers we had ordered and that they would be coming. And then we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

20 minutes later we asked if we could have any of our food or tea. We were told it was coming and that the tea was steeping. Finally, two measly cold scones come out. No toppings. I have been to many tea places and have never been given cold scones without the offer of jam, clotted cream, butter, etc. The server promptly left without explaining what type of scones they were.

We waited some more. She finally comes back - without any other food or tea to tell us that we had to ASK for toppings and, "what do you want?" And guess what, 20 minutes later - that tea is STILL steeping. I've worked at Starbucks in my college days. Tea takes 4 minutes to steep ladies.

Premeasured jam, butter, and double cream come out in little cups. No exaggeration, one measly little teaspoon in each cup. She leaves us with one of each to be shared by the two of us and I had to ask her for a second of the cream. Upon looking at this cream it was evident that it had been sitting out for hours as it had separated and all of the liquid was swimming in the bottom. It looked disgusting. The owner simply said, "I can bring you the jar so you can see where it came from." No apology, no offer to get us more that didn't look like a curdled mess.

During this time another server came out with what she thought was our tea. When the owner asked her what types they were, she answered with, "I don't know." Well they weren't ours. Still no tea. It's 40 minutes into our reservation. You guys - it's a tea house. We still have no tea.

At 1:51 pm our tower finally arrives. Still no tea. This is the saddest tea tower I have ever seen. It was so painfully obvious they weren't handmaking anything in the kitchen. They've sourced their food from various places. Costco probably for the macarons. Kroger possibly for the cold croissant for the chicken salad that hadn't seen an oven to be warmed up and toasted. Keep in mind, I had given them my order the night before but yet it took them 51 minutes to put this sad tower together. The owner placed it on the table and leaves without any explanation of what we were looking at. I had to ask her to come back over to tell us.

One pot of tea arrives. Another server takes my mom's cup, doesn't pour tea into it, takes it away and puts it on one of the unbussed tables that we're still having the pleasure of looking at. Picks up another tea cup from that unbussed table and proceeds to pour the tea into it. Why would we want a cup from someone else's dirty table?! What is happening here? What was wrong with the cup she took off of our table? We ask for a clean cup, which she then has to leave the tea room to go get.

At 1:54 we get up and leave. Without eating. Trust me, we weren't missing anything. Still only one of the two pots of tea have arrived. Nearly an hour at a TEA room and they can't bring us tea. I thought we were being punked. It was so incredibly bizarre. And frustrating. And - my blood pressure is rising just reliving it to write this review.

Ultiimately she gave us our money back so she did the right thing and earned the 1 star I'm giving for this joke of a tea house. Keller, Colleyville, seriously, all of Texas, don't waste...

We went to this tea house today with really high hopes! My family and I love to get tea! I got there and was confused why our table didn’t get menus like other people in the room, and I guess if you have a reservation, you need to text the number with the type of tea tower you want. I asked why we couldn’t place an order for my daughter who has food sensitivities to change hers to the kids tray. They said because I neglected to contact them beforehand they defaulted everything to the mid tier level tray. I was fine with that for the adults but told them she wouldn’t eat that, so I asked if I could just get her tea if we can’t change it. The owner came up and was incredibly snippy and told me that was unacceptable and said I would have to pay for the whole thing because it was my whole fault, which it is on the website, so I get it. I should have paid better attention. I said I was frustrated under my breath because I didn’t want to pay $50+ dollars for something she wouldn’t touch. She turned around and stomped towards our table and she put her hand on my back/shoulders and said that I needed to be less belligerent and kinder to her and didn’t want me to cause a scene. I was literally just sitting there speaking with a calm tone trying to advocate for my child. I just think that she didn’t like that I was asking why she couldn’t be accommodated. Other people were in the room with tea menus, and they boast that everything except for a few things are all made in house, so I don’t understand why there was an issue.

She eventually made it right for my daughter, but it honestly has left a bad taste in my mouth all day. My mom flew here from Oregon and we were doing something for her birthday which is tomorrow. I know the owner will probably come on here and say all the things I did wrong like she has for other reviewers, but I know she had all the resources to make it right from the beginning, but didn’t want to accommodate which was sad. After she made it right she came back to show me her messages from me to prove that I didn’t text her and told me that I was snippy and causing a scene.

All that needed to be done was a reminder “Hey, we can make it work for this one time, but next time we really need you to put it in the notes section before you come.”

5 stars for my server and 5 stars for the food because it was great. Operations has room to grow. I really really wanted to love this place. But maybe that’s just me...

I had a reservation in the tea room and really enjoyed it. Our server was very attentive and took the time to explain details about the menu to us. The presentation of our tea tower was gorgeous, and the attention to detail in creating the Easter themed treats was impressive.

I ordered an Alice tea tower for both my fiance and I, which came with 1 of each savory and sweet treat & scone per person. This was well worth the price, as it came with plenty of delicious food (we brought home leftovers) and a pot of tea for each person. IMO - this was an absolute steal since I’ve looked at other teas in the DFW area, and most would charge more for an equivalent service.

The food was delicious, and the tea was very good - slightly strong for our tastes, but delicious with cream and sugar.

The only criticism/suggestion I have would be to offer an option to have cold teas pre-sweetened while brewing, since the sugar cubes can’t be used with a cold tea. I am certain the staff would have done this if asked, it just didn’t occur to us until after we had...