Madeline Garden Bistro & Venue — Restaurant in Pasadena

DO NOT BOOK THIS PLACE FOR A ONE TIME EVENT. THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT CUSTOMERS RETURNING!!!

If I could give this place a 0 I would. There's plenty of other bad reviews on here, so as you can tell, Ray is pretty consistent in disappointing people.

I booked this place two months in advance for my sister's bridal shower and gave them a clear cut list of the guest's names and what they wanted to eat.

My event started at 11 am with no one tending to my guests at 11:10 am. After 10 minutes of no greetings, I chased the servers down. I complained about their negligence and the absurd temperature of the room. Not ONCE were they proactive about moving us to a different room seeing all of the guests unhappy and melting in the heat.

Our food did NOT come until 12:35 pm. What was the point of me sending Ray a list with all of the orders if they were gonna take an hour and a half to serve the food?!!

Once I confronted Ray, he was incredibly passive, non-apologetic, and not empathetic at all. He kept pointing the finger on everyone else except for himself (the manager). He said "I didn't know it was hot" (keep in mind he was one of the people serving us food in the scorching HEAT) and "you could have asked us to move to a different room."

Then, he blamed the slowness on having other parties booked the same day. If your staff is not capable of handling more than one party in a timely manner, then don't book more than one and ruin a bridal shower for someone else.

Mind you, I have worked in the restaurant service for 4 years, my sister (the bride) for 7, and my cousin for 13 in retail. We all know good customer service and professionalism when we see it. Ray did not show one ounce of professionalism when we confronted him about the shortcomings of the event. All he did was initially offer $100 off of my $1146 bill. What is $100 out of that entire bill?!!!

I complained saying that's not even 10%. Then he reluctantly added a measly $50 on top it after I complained more, and as I was calculating what 15% would be ($171), he walked away from me and only refunded $150.

Honestly with all of the complaints and constructive criticism, I deserve at least $300-$500 off of my bill for this TERRIBLE experience.

WHAT KIND OF MANAGER LETS HIS GUESTS WALK AWAY UNHAPPY? The Bride was in tears in front of him because it ruined her big day. Seeing her cry meant nothing to him.

Also, keep in mind, the apologies or the refund would not have come to his mind first without us confronting ourselves. He is a completely greedy, lazy, and...

We go out to a fancy tea place every year with the family, and while we like to change things up, this is a repeat option for us. We just came here again this past month, and these are my notes. To whomever said below that it is not kid-friendly, it absolutely is. The kids loved it! But our kids were 9 and 10. Perhaps they were talking about toddlers. The kids loved trying the different options of food and tea, and the biggest hit was that they picked the hibiscus tea. It was actually everyone’s favorite tea, and we had three additional options on the table. There was a little bit of mixup a couple of times with the service, as we were brought salads twice and had to let the server know we already ate hours, and then later we were brought a minty tea instead of lavender Earl Gray, but that was fixed. The strange thing is that Earl Gray is a black tea—a strong, black tea that is delightful with milk—and this most definitely was either watered down extremely or was not a black tea at all. It never took on a dark color. I think that perhaps those large white tea pots require two teabags? My other suggestion was that those large white teapots should not be the ones that the kids are given, because they are too heavy for a child to pick up. The two kids shared a tea, and we had to help them pour each time. Two other people on our table had much smaller teapots given to them, and I recommend doing that for the kids next time. Also, the kids had a spiced pear cheesecake on their plates, and that is not something kids are familiar with or kids would appreciate very much. The adults ended up eating that and really praising it. In fact, it was every adult’s favorite dessert, and we all just had one tiny bite of it, as we had to share. But the adults were given something chocolate, and what kid doesn’t like chocolate? I highly suggest you switch those two, chocolate mousse for the kids and spiced pear cheesecake for the adults. My favorite thing to eat was the smoked salmon sandwich, and everybody else’s favorite sandwich was the grilled cheese with soup shot. The harpist played beautifully, and the bathrooms were elegant. Parking was not an issue, as we all easily found street parking on a...

This is a tea room and restaurant in one of Pasadena's most iconic and historic buildings. The place has two rooms with fireplaces, one of them small and intimate, the other a large room with a Grand stone mantled fireplace. Another small room is tucked near the kitchen. It also has a lovely patio that additionally serves as a beautiful beer garden on certain nights. Depending on the time of day, one can get brunch or dinner, and in the afternoons a wonderful high tea. (Try the Rose Tea if you're in town for the Rose Parade!) The quiet, beautiful setting of Madeline Garden Bistro is the perfect antidote for holiday exhaustion, or for frayed nerves any time of year. They also offer paid tours of this historic building. One of the loveliest afternoons we've had in a long time when we had high tea here on 30 Dec 2018. As we live in the area, we have returned again and again. At the end of March 2019 we brought our then 8-yr-old here for high tea. She just loved it. She wanted to have her next birthday at Madeline's. The pandemic interfered with some of our plans, but we finally were able to fulfill her birthday wish. In April 2022 we took our now soon-to-be 11-yr-old here to fulfill that birthday wish. It was so lovely to sit out on the front patio to enjoy our tea among the greenery, the quiet, and the flowers. Highly recommended because it has consistently been a delightful place for high teas and...