Rare Tea — Restaurant in Rancho Cucamonga

Posting this because the management response to my wife is unprofessional in my opinion, no accountability whatsoever. We ordered a Milk Thai Tea with boba. When we got our drink, we realized it was missing the boba, so she asked the employee about the missing boba. He then said he had to charge us which was not an issue, but he was argumentative in saying “well I asked if you wanted toppings and you said no”. Which she originally only said no, because her order clearly stated that she wanted a THAI TEA WITH BOBA, so we declined additional toppings. She explained this to him, and once again he stated “well no when you ordered it you said no toppings”. So instead of arguing back and forth, I told her it was fine. But the employee’s argumentative way was enough for us to say no and just leave. And because my wife is pregnant I didn’t want her getting into a heated argument with someone that severely lacks customer service skills, in my opinion.

And yes the employees Instead of apologizing and explaining, he decided to be argumentative about why he didn’t put any boba. Blaming it my on my wife. When he’s the one who didn’t make it correctly in the first place. Now the manager is claiming that he was polite, but just because he doesn’t raise his voice doesn’t mean he’s polite. Arguing with a customer that is very obviously pregnant, when you’re the one in the wrong, isn’t polite.

My wife had also initially had added a tip when she paid for our order because he seemed nice.

However, management clearly doesn’t state that.. in our opinion it was not good service, and Thai tea was not good

Edit as response: the least you could do since you’re going to basically call us liars is refund the tip, so yes go ahead and do that.

Second edit: yeah $1 is about 18% of we paid, don’t try to make it seem like we did a $1 on a $20 order lol.

And after reading all the negative reviews on your business, in my opinion, you are a terrible manager who severely lacks customer service skills and tact. The way you condescendingly respond to anyone with any criticism or bad review, tells your potential customer all they need to know.

You act as if all these customer complaints, the customer is wrong 100%. Never your employee, you cannot be that naive. But if you’re condescending and rude just because you think that’s how you’re going to win, let me tell you.. you won’t in the long run. You have only been open a little more than 2 years. And within the last year alone you have accumulated several bad reviews, that should tell you that your business or employees are probably not doing something right. Yeah the customer isn’t always right.. but neither is the business. And just because you have been open for 2 years, doesn’t mean you will continue to be successful. Today when we went, it was completely empty. We were order #6 or 9 (I believe) and it was close to 4 pm. What does that tell you? When other nearby food and drink establishments were jam packed because people were off enjoying the holiday.

You should definitely take some customer service and hospitality course, because at the rate you’re going with your rude and condescending responses, in my opinion, you’re going to continue to get complaints from customers who feel similar.

no business can outlive terrible customer service. Especially with a manager that doesn’t seem to have any...

There are three boba places that I frequent in Rancho Cucamonga depending on what drink I'm craving. Rare Tea became one of my top 2 when they came out with their duo grape tea (when they used grapes and not the jelly they use now). I considered it a fairly authentic tea with decent ingredient quality compared to places in SGV and LA. Today I stopped by to get the rose matcha latte. I'm very soft spoken, so the young employee may not have heard me well enough because I ended up with a lychee matcha latte. I would have drank it, but I'm not fond of the combination. I waited in line after getting my drink to ask them to replace it. At that time the younger employee was making orders and the older man came to the front to take orders. As soon as I mentioned that I ordered the rose and that I would've drank it if it hadn't been lychee matcha, he proceeded to loudly berate the younger employee. He appeared to be very angry and was gesticulating violently. Not only does witnessing that make me uncomfortable as a customer, but verbal abuse is also not okay. I was going to tell the older person to speak to his employee more nicely, because speaking to them that way actually increases the chances of them making more mistakes and isn't good for them in general. The guy made my drink, dropped it on the counter, and walked away. I had zero chance of chatting with him about it and I couldn't apologize to the young employee for my part. I will not be back. I can't support a place where this type of behavior is...

I would say that there aren't too many boba places like RareTea in the Inland Empire - they offer milk teas, teas with organic milk, fruit teas, matcha tea, smoothies, and special-teas. They also have a plethora of add-ins and toppings. I will say that the drinks are on the pricier side - and if you're customizing and adding toppings, the drinks can end up costing more than anticipated.

I wanted to buy the most generic drink - a boba milk tea; they don't have any options where there's a set price for a tea with boba inside already, so I paid $5.50 for the black milk tea + $0.65 for boba and $1.25 for snow cream. (If you wanted the brown sugar boba, it would have been an extra $1.00 - felt like this was a little too high.) My drink came out to almost $8. With the increase in pricing for many items, I can understand having to mark up items, but paying almost $8 for a drink was a little too much.

They do use quality items - and overall, the taste of the drink was pretty good. While I didn't get the brown sugar boba, I thought the regular boba was sweet enough. And the snow cream was also well made - thick and creamy without having too much cheese taste. Drinking the tea with a sip of the snow cream and then the tea made for quite the delicious sip. I do think the black milk tea at 50% sugar tasted a bit more watered down instead of having a...