Attic Secrets Cafe & Tea — Restaurant in Marysville

One star for the really cute place - themed rooms were nicely done, entry area is cute, and we enjoyed the Alice in Wonderland room - I'm guessing we were seated there because we had kids with us, but the adults also liked the decor.

One star for most of the food being pretty tasty (see detailed reviews of what we ordered below) and no complaints about anything from either kid.

*Three stars OFF for the hour and 40 minutes we waited to get any food, the lack of typical server friendliness/courtesy, lack of an explanation or apology at any point for the extreme delay, the amount of food served for $15 (the Little Darling tea - see photo), the substitution of a miniscule sugar cookie for a mini scone in same meal (she said she was out - why not just cut a regular one in half?), the lack of explanation about said substitution until I asked about the missing scone, etc. etc.

I understand places are understaffed right now, but I have never in my life waited even an hour for food without at least an explanation or quick apology from someone. I have also not received substitutions without apology or explanation. Had we not been there with friends, we would have surely left before the food arrived.

THE FOOD Tea: tasty and decent variety, although the herbal tea section of the menu was a little confusing since it was labeled "Black and Herbal Teas" (even though black teas were listed first/separately at the top). Only some of the teas in that section were herbal.

ICED tea: note that they will not ice it in the kitchen. It will be delivered hot as usual, along with a pitcher of ice for you to maneuver into your cup and pour the tea over (obviously it waters it down - though it was still tasty enough).

Also, if you order the same tea as a tablemate, they will give you a shared pot of tea which also felt miserly. We were both still charged for tea separately (her as part of her tea order and me as a standalone to go with my sandwich). It's not like they used double the amount of tea leaves.

Chicken salad & egg salad sandwiches: tasty, well received

Scones: more like thick biscuits, didn't meet our expectations. Only came with one topping and extra charge added for each additional topping (it's quite common to receive 2-3 spreads at other tea places, included in the price, so this felt a bit miserly).

Caramel bread pudding: although not at all like bread pudding I've had before, it was tasty. It was several slices of tasty (eggy? cinnamon?) raisin bread in a little dish with caramel sauce and cream over/around it.

Little Darling tea for children age 10 & under: $15 for three tiny triangles of sandwich, the equivalent of about one medium strawberry, and two teeny tiny treats (one of which should have been a mini scone). I have a petite 8-year-old kid and normally tea provides so much food, I thought this would be perfect for her, but she was notably disappointed when the plate was set in front of her and I worried she would still be hungry. No way would this satisfy the average 10-year old, as it was about 10-15 bites of food total. As mentioned above, no explanation of the missing scone until I flagged down the server and asked (apparently the quarter-sized sugar cookie seemed a good replacement to them, but not to us).

Turkey/brie/cranberry sandwich: I ordered it on sourdough and it was pretty solid. Nothing fancy, but good. I ordered a half and was mistakenly brought a whole, so I scraped the brie off half and let my kiddo eat it since her meal was basically half a...

Worth every cent! The chicken pecan salad sandwich is my favorite! But the turkey pesto sandwich was an unexpected pleasure to taste, I would never have thought of putting pesto on a sandwich but this was truly delish! The chicken caesar salad was perfectly balanced with the dressing to lettuce to cheese to crouton to chicken ratio and worth going for just that alone. The scones, now let me tell you about these scones: dense but warm and the perfect amount of crumbly dougheyness with a citrus glaze on top and add some strawberry jam, girrrrrrl let me tell you what, amazing, absolutely phenomenal. I have never enjoyed scones so I walked in super skeptical and oh man I am a HUGE FAN! I love the presentation of the tiered scrumptious morsels, made me feel uber fancy and the shop was so clean and organized and appeared high class (though my norm is usually sweats and a tshirt) enough for me to decide to dress up for my youngest daughter's 7th birthday with her grandmother and sister. The place made my OCD happy with it's cleanly organization and it was satisfying walking in to see all the teacups and teapots. Make a reservation because you will not regret it. No hovering servers or rush to be assembly lined. Plan to be allowed to take your quality time and enjoy each other. Plus my kiddo accidentally spilled her tea, staff asked her if she was okay and acted like it was no biggie, got us some extra napkins, wet cloth to wipe up the sticky sugary tea, and quickly Swiffer'd up the floor and wiped down her seat. Best tea house around. I really like that the reciept states exactly what was ordered so that I can keep track of all the teas I have/haven't tried. Also, FAIR WARNING, LEARNING EXPERIENCE: letting a 7 year old have caffinated black tea was not in my best interest and I urge you moms out there to prepare for some non-stop motor mouth white noise on the way home that may pause a time or two for you to say, "uh huh," so they know you are listening. Just mentally prepare yourselves for that, or avoid it. I unfortunately didn't think to convince her of another of the 100's of choices thinking, "it's her birthday, let's spoil her some," yeaaah, I'm not making that mistake twice, I still have no idea what she said on the way home that day because she was like Windows 10 to my Windows 95 with dial up internet and...

I came here for a nine-year-old tea birthday party and it was adorable.

GLOWS: I loved how there were individual rooms for different groups of people so it felt very private for parties. They were all decorated differently so you had a whole thing going on and it was all very cute. We liked all the teas we tried, and there was a very large selection of teas. Were our favorite. They were moist and really buttery and yummy and I loved eating it with the lemon custard and the whip cream. the cakes were given that were very moist and flavorful and there was a chocolate one and a vanilla one their gluten-free was very impressive, and my friend was very pleased that she was able to eat something. She said her gluten-free items were all very good.

GROWS The first savory item that the tea set came with was not good at all. I'm not even sure what it was, but it tasted like cardboard. It was like a cheese and chive biscuit or something and it just tasted like cardboard. Not to mention it was tiny. the sandwiches that the tea sets came with could've been filled with a little more filling. I felt like there were quite thin for what they were. Some of them I couldn't even tell what the fillings were because it was like a sliver of an apple or a sliver of spread. though all the rooms were very cute, Everything seemed a little outdated and older looking. It wasn't modern by any means. I don't think a lot of people work here so sometimes it was hard to get the attention of the servers. As long as you are aware of this, it shouldn't be too bad because you can just make sure you have everything in advance or go to the door by the kitchen to get their attention. They just seem understaffed so they don't come check in with you as much. Also, because the rooms are all separated it might be hard for them to know you're trying to wave them down.

Overall, the nine-year-old had a wonderful time and so that the adults that were there. We enjoyed the meal and we were full by the time we left. We even took home leftovers. Looking back now I would not get Grand lady because that was not really necessary And the price was not really worth it so next time I would get...