High Tea With Gerri — Restaurant in Long Grove

I was very excited to find out about this charming, cozy & tastefully decorated place when I was planning a baby shower for a very good friend of mine. I read all the good 5-star reviews & experienced such a disappointment that I haven’t felt in a while. I typically don’t leave reviews, but I feel that constructive feedback should be given for the owner of this place, so that this business can live up to the expectations of the art of afternoon tea. Several people from our party felt uncomfortable & not treated nicely during our 2.5 hour visit. I’ll start by saying that I was in touch with Gerri by phone at least 3 times before the baby shower, and she was all nice & polite, booked the date & sounded very accommodating. Please, don’t be miss-guided here!!! The actual face-to face experience started on the day of the event when I entered the door to hear that she was not aware that it was a baby shower. So, obviously all the conversations, including the main reason for the event, the number of people etc. went into one ear & were never written down. She proceeded to say that we won’t have enough space for everybody & that I should have paid extra $200 to book the whole place … what on earth … and why would I book the whole place for a party of 10 people ? I understand & respect the rules, but why not mention all of this this during prior conversations we had, including the number of people we’re going to have? Very disorganized, unprofessional, unaccommodating, inflexible & rude. Sorry, but that’s what I felt bringing 10 people to this place. So, I swallowed & had to move on, as there wasn’t much time before the guests arrived. The next mishap was a couple of glasses of champagne being knocked down on one of the guests & the table, and not a single apology mentioned to the guests. I understand accidents do happen, but my parents taught me to be responsible for my own actions, polite & respectful to other people. Another remark came about staining a tablecloth when a raspberry was accidentally dropped on a table cloth, and that same raspberry was immediately returned to my friend’s glass of champagne. I’m not convinced that this is a sign of good manners & etiquette at High Tea. Felt more like a concern about the table cloth being stained. The next thing was when one of the servers closed the door upon our request, as our party was seated next to an entrance, and it was quite cold, windy & rainy day, as other people were coming in. Little did we know that the owner would accuse us of it later on. Again, I understand the rules, but please, train your staff or explain this to your guests & maybe don’t necessarily do things if they don’t quite make sense. Adjust the tone & find ways to politely explain your position. The last straw was when it was time to pay for the party, and I was passing out the credit card receipts for my friends to sign. I tried to handle the “paying” part discretely, as we paid for our guest of honor & didn’t want the numbers or calculations be flying over the table. So, I took it behind the doors with the owner, and wanted to return the signed receipts when everybody was finished. The owner, obviously, didn’t pick up on this & came out & started to count the amounts in front of the table & the guest of honor to make sure everybody paid. Hope this descriptive experience is helpful for some party organizers & constructive to the owner. Bottom line - I would NOT recommend this place for parties because of poor service & ill attitude...

I want to start off by saying I know food allergies are difficult for restaurants to accommodate and I completely understand if they are unable to do so. However, it's one thing to be unable to accomodate an allergy and another to say you can and then retract that statement after several confirmations.

I inquired about whether the food allergies my child has could be accommodated prior to making a reservation and was told by Miranda that they could. For context the allergies are dairy, peanut, and egg with gluten intolerance. I proceeded to make a reservation, and a week after I made the reservation Miranda reached out again confirming whether the whole party or just 1 of us had dietary restrictions. I asked for whatever was easiest and was told by Miranda that it was no problem to prepare a different menu for just the 1 person.

By all accounts Miranda was a pleasure. The issue is with Gerri the owner.

Gerri reached out to me today via text, 2 days prior to my reservation, to tell me in what felt like a very condescending tone that there were too many restrictions and offered to just serve salad instead. I was floored. Not only does their website state that they can accommodate, but I received confirmation from Miranda twice that it would be no problem. After I sent her a screenshot from her website suddenly the only issue is the bread because apparently no dairy, egg, and gf free bread exists? After I replied that it does, Gerri once again gave me a condescending response and asked if I wanted to keep the reservation and she would get the quote "special bread". As if the reviews about the lack of hygiene at this place weren't bad enough now I have to trust that this ignorant woman won't give my child an allergy attack.

Gerri, I can buy the "special bread" as you call it at Aldi, it's not that special and not that hard to find. Also a quick google search would tell you that you were wrong and would have saved you some embarrassment. I find it hard to believe that someone who claims to serve dairy and gluten-free menus has never encountered someone who needs both. I guess the reviews about your attitude, and most of your food being prepackaged from Trader Joes are right. Update your website and learn what...

I want this to be very clear, the servers (not Gerri) were great and tried to accommodate us at every turn. The owner Gerri might be a little "intolerant" of individuals that were not born and raised in America (read between the lines here). My experience was not much different, and unsurprisingly I was with a Russian speaking group.

We had a party of 10. On top of treating us like children, they failed to meet basic sanitary standards. Tea cups were dirty upon arrival. When Gerri was serving us, she knocked over a couple beverages, including a glass of champagne with raspberries. Instead of apologizing to my friend that was covered in champagne, Gerri fussed over the raspberries exclaiming that they would stain the tablecloth. She proceeded to put the raspberries back into the champagne glass, as if we were expected to continue like nothing happened. None of the beverages were replaced.

I was sitting near the doors, and it was rather cold outside. When a second private party started arriving through the doors (their room has a separate entrance), I asked our waitress to close the doors to redirect traffic so I wouldn't be uncomfortable. She very quickly closed everything, until Gerri ran over to open up the doors again. When I explained why it was all closed, she brushed off my concerns and insisted that the other party needed both entrance options. It seemed quite rude that our private party needed to be disturbed repeatedly to benefit another group, especially when Gerri refused to close the curtain separating the two parties.

As if this experience was not already miserable, the food and drink was nothing noteworthy. The sandwiches were tasteless, I'd recommend buying trays of sandwiches at Costco instead. The website boasts a "large variety of tea" which is simply untrue. She only had black tea, and it turned into yellowish water near the end of our event. The deserts were not homemade, a huge letdown for "high tea." The macaroons were likely purchased at...