Gryphon — Restaurant in Savannah

We had a good experience, we went for my daughter and she adopted the experience!

Our waitress seemed new, but sweet. I would recommend her listening a little more closely as we wanted to start with drink orders and rather than taking our order, she walked away to get everyone waters.

She was really keen on wanting to tell us the history of the location and things in the tea house but I would recommend knowing more about the menu items and as she couldn't explain what was in their chicken salad. (Which kind of made me laugh as the menu was very descriptive of everything else.)

The chicken salad was good, the hot cocoa could have been more chocolatey.

My son had the salmon entree while my daughter had the salmon sandwich and both enjoyed their meals.

The soup of the day was a white chicken chili and it smelled amazing but it was a bit too salty for me. My son's girlfriend seemed to enjoy her bowl of it.

My husband had the quiche and seemed to enjoy it as well as the pots of tea he shared with our daughter as well as the shared the tea sandwich platter for the table.

The favorite for the family was the cherry almond scones. So my h so that my daughter got an order of them to go. However only two of the three were the flavor she ordered as they ran out, so she was stuck with a vanilla scone. She was slightly disappointed because she enjoyed the cherry almond so much but has yet to try the vanilla.

The waitress heard we were celebrating a graduation, a birthday, and an anniversary so she was sweet to bring out some complimentary blueberry mini muffins, however the timing was off as three of the five family members had already departed as I waited for the check.

It was a very sweet and appreciated gesture. The timing was just off.

It was cool to learn that those employed at the tea room were all SCAD students.

Overall it was a good experience. I felt it was a bit pricey and the service seemed slower than it should have been as they weren't busy. But my daughter had a wonderful experience and that was appreciated.

The decor was beautiful and really neat to hear...

So here's my experience

Was coming down to the area for 2 weeks to visit family and relax. Not our first trip by any means.

It was my mom's 87th birthday and we wanted to go there for lunch and tea service. So we all looked at the website and picked out what we wanted so when we got there we would know what to order. Everybody raved about the Tea service so why not!

Nothing we picked out was on the menu. They scaled down their menu to such an extent that we honestly didn't want to order anything at that point. But because it was my mom's birthday and we waited an hour to be seated even with empty tables.

Young waiter comes up and was very pleasant and told us about the restaurant and asked us if we wanted any drinks etc. So we order our drinks and then he comes back and takes our food order which included tea for two. And my niece ordered the asparagus soup. More on that later.

When the tea set up time I asked him what types of tea they had to go with it. Get this...... he said he does not come with it automatically. The service for two included two drinks. So the coffee I ordered and the soda that my mother ordered were considered the drinks.

Seriously? Why wouldn't that be mentioned from the beginning? Along the lines of oh if you're ordering tea it comes with two beverages. Tea or something else. No not a word. So that took away from the experience as well. No tea with your tea service.

The asparagus soup was pale green water. We all tasted it and it was disgusting. Told the waiter and he said he was sorry to hear that and would let them know.

Not a word about asking if my young niece would like something else or an offer to remove it from the bill since there was about a tablespoon of it missing.

Needless to say this was incredibly disappointing. Feel completely duped by the online menu. It felt like a bait and switch.

I can't imagine ever coming back which is a shame because it's a...

We booked an afternoon tea for our wedding day for 30 of our guests at the Gryphon Tea Room. Although a beautiful building and decent food -the service is subpar at best.

Organizing the event was difficult to say the least, but we were able to come to an agreement on a special menu for our guests. It was our wedding day after all and our friends and family traveled across the country to experience Savannah for the first time. So being "extra" was something the tea room accepted when they took our reservations.

Upon arrival, there were no other guests in the restaurant and 3 staff members standing right inside the door. As our guests entered the restaurant, we began to bottleneck because the staff didn't greet us or say anything at all. Just stood there.

After taking charge myself, the staff finally began to move. They had a limited knowledge of the menu and when they asked what tea we would like, they were stumped when we inquired for a menu to see the choices. A tea room have a tea menu? Mind blogging!

In the planning process it was made clear that each guest would be paying on their own. It was again mentioned as the server began to take orders. Our transportation was to arrive at 1230 so at 1215 I asked for bills to be handled out and leftovers to be boxed up. At 1229, neither had been done. Upon asking again, I was given a $1000 bill for everyone and since we didn't have the time to fix something they were instructed 3 times on, I just paid it.

Banquets may not be this businesses strong suit. I suggest either some intense training or not accepting parties bigger than you can handle. Offering poor service because you can still make money is not something the hospitality city should be...