The Secret Garden Cafe — Restaurant in Sedona

The Secret Garden at Tlaquepaque was an amazing and disappointing breakfast experience at the same time.

What a display of resilience and true grit on the part of the restaurant employees during a short staffing crisis.

The first thing we noticed upon arrival was a silent but palpable 'chaos crescendo'. The breakfast rush had begun, many guests started showing up, except there was only one problem: there were only THREE SERVERS and JUST ONE COOK to serve the 60 or more hungry customers!!

We were some of the first customers who arrived, but even though there were plenty of open tables, we couldn't get seated quite yet, and had to wait 15 minutes to get our table.

I jokingly asked a server: "Did someone decide to call In [sick] today?" She said they were multiple people short staffed this morning! I felt empathy and admiration for those brave, resilliant and multi-tasking Fantastic Four!

Even in the eye of the storm and the ever compounding influx of the masses, our short but brave staff never complained, nor did they 'crash' under pressure.

BRAVI, Jenna & Cristina running the tables, Olivia at the bar, hostess station and for expediting food and chef Bruno, as the only cook, all whom demonstrated courage and class without missing amazing customer service skills and serving delicious, well-prepared dishes!

Food was amazing! I give these four brave restaurant warriors FIVE STARS! But, I give manager Josh and owner Robin an 'F' and only ONE STAR for letting your staff down and not helping them in their time of need when they needed you most!

Josh, it is my understanding that you've recently took on the manager position at Secret Garden, but it is No 'Secret', how terribly bad you failed as leader.

I know and have worked in all aspects of restaurant operations, including management! I Know 1st Hand!

Let me tell you something, Josh: What you did to these four suffering hard workers was inexcusable and totally impardonnable! How dare you not get out of bed, rush to the restaurant to control the urgent situation and aide your employees??

The Garden employees looked up to you for help and called you, but YOU Decided not to run to the rescue and NOT BE PRESENT!! SHAME ON YOU, JOSH!!!

Owner Robin, you are partly to blame (staffing-wise and by appearing to not to be keeping a watchful eye on what goes on at the Secret Garden in your absence)

I really don't know all sides to the story. I'm only seeing it from the perspective of your brave, extremely efficient, courteous and magnificently well-behaved employees, and of course, from MY Perspective as a customer and Google reviewer (with over 4 million views of my Google Maps reviews, photos & contributions, as well as being a top 10% expert restaurant reviewer on Google, I think this review should matter a bit).

I'm not here to denounce or point fingers. However, as a customer, I have Every Right to critique the service I paid for and to share my dining experience in Google in an objective manner.

I believe in second chances, in giving my reviewed places a fair opportunity to remedy & correct shortcomings, and, in receiving a follow up or reply from the owners and managers of the places I review.

Eagerly waiting for your response and your manager correction update.

The four employees should be highly...

3 1/2 stars

After recently completing the Devil's Bridge hike in the early morning, my top-tier chum who literally went to the school of hospitality and I were pretty famished and in need of some carby brunch goodness. There were a few decent looking restaurants but we decided to give this one a shot; it looked cute and the menu had a solid variety of options. As an added bonus, we'd driven past the Tlaquepaque Village a bunch of times already and were curious about it - the Secret Garden is right on the edge of that so we were able to effortlessly segue into an exploration of that area after eating.

One of the advantages of being done with a hike insanely early is that traffic and congestion aren't an issue around Sedona yet. We were able to very easily secure a parking spot nearby and headed over. There was initially a misleading line out the door (intimidating enough that I immediately grabbed my phone to look over other possible destinations to pivot to) but I'm assuming it was just a weird quirky bottleneck because it disappeared after two or three minutes and we saw plenty of seating once we got in. Not wanting to take any more chances though, we asked to sit at the bar and were immediately led over there to sup on some much deserved calories.

I'd had a hankering for Huevos Rancheros since we got to Arizona, so I checked that box off. It was good - as you can see from the accompanying picture, it was a generous helping. Just a palate preference, but I wasn't crazy about the side of potatoes, which is usually a huge plus for me. I'd personally like "normal" white potatoes that are seasoned versus colored ones. (And yes, I did just spend three minutes on Google trying in vain to not make that sound as 1950s cringy as it did).

My chum had kind of a weird, gray area issue that's open for debate. She got one of the dishes that had bacon in it and doesn't eat pork, so she asked for it to be substituted with the marinated steak. They did that, but then charged the extra $9 for the "addition" of the steak, when it was actually replacing the bacon. I went back and forth on that one, but there's definitely an argument that that should have been discussed between her and the server since it's not quite as straightforward of an order as it could be, and maybe she could have saved a few dollars in the end.

This was honestly not very memorable for me; I imagine one of the big selling points is their outdoor seating, which we didn't experience. We also noticed the very intriguing optics of the mimosa flight after the fact, so it's possible that the overall tepidness of the experience was more on us than Secret Garden. It was fine though. I wouldn't have an issue going back but given where you are, it's hard to justify a repeat visit if you still have so many other intriguing options left to...

I just had the WORST happy hour experience of my life (not being dramatic at all!) we better call it "The Secret Garden Cafe Sad Hour". DO NOT go there for happy hour! When me and my husband checked in with the hostess, we told her we were there for happy hour. She told us we could only sit at the bar (indoors) or at the front bistro tables. We opted for the front bistro tables as the weather was great. She came out to seat us with only the happy hour menu (usually I like to see all the menus in case I change my mind) nobody came out to check on us. The hostess proceeded to tell us that if we wanted to order, we needed to come in and order at the bar. My husband went in again to ask for water cups ( by the way one of them had bird poop on the outside ewww!) My husband went back in to order 2 margaritas and sliders. The bar tender (a guy in his 40s) brought them to us and saw our water cups were empty yet, he didn't offer to refill them. My husband went in to check on the sliders since again, we were sitting there receiving ZERO service. The bar tender said the sliders were on the way. 20 min later he brought the sliders out. At this point we didn't even have utensils or napkins! Again, he didn't even offer that, instead he told us to bring our plates and cups back to the bar counter when we were done. What?! This is after we had already paid the bill and tipped. Nevertheless, nobody came to check on how we're the drinks or the sliders. I have never experienced such non service at a restaurant or cafe! I brought my cups back to the bar and asked to speak to the manager. I have to communicate that the experience was as worse as their cafe. To my surprise, the bar tender was the manager. What a joke! He told me he was sorry I wasn't told how their cafe works and the tables out front are for people waiting for tables to eat. I wasn't told that but also, the place was empty! There was nobody waiting lol I wasnt looking for any explanation because I know how restaurants and service works and this place provides really bad service. He was not happy to hear it and he was ready for me to leave, so he told me " I have already apologized, so I don't think we need to continue going back and forth" hahaha way to go manager of the year. I hope the owner of this place read this and tries to improves the customer's experience. I sure won't be coming back. If you just read this long review, save yourself the bad experience and go to the brewery across the courtyard, their happy hour margaritas are a better price and you will get...