Alice in the Village — Restaurant in Stonington

Okay okay, so I've been to Alice in the Village once before the visit that this review is talking about, but that was a few years ago so maybe their employees and management has changed. Anyways, here we go: -Atmosphere: 5/5 Adorable Alice in Wonderland café with cute Haunted-Mansion themed gift shop next door. The (fake) flowers everywhere really tie that secret-garden vibe together. My only complaint is that some of the chairs in the Tea Room aren't as comfortable as they look. -Beverages: 1/5 Oh no, here we go. So my mother got the Iced Hibiscus Tea and described it as very mild with no sweetener at all, which I swear the menu said it was sweetened. My friend and I got boba (bubble tea). I got Taro, which is my favorite flavor and I have had before both at this location and elsewhere. I could barely finish half of it. It was watered-down, had a weird aftertaste, and all of the tapioca pearls at the bottom were clumped together. My friend tried the vanilla (which I also have tried myself here) and gagged. She said it tasted awful, so I took a sip. It was sickeningly sweet, had a slight vanilla taste, and a bit watered down (though that could have been from the ice melting in the span of the 30 seconds this took). It also had the same weird almost chemical aftertaste as mine. The only reason they get a point for this is because the drinks were consumable (at least, mine and my mums). -Food : 3/5 For the record, we only had macarons, so I can't speak to anything else or any other type of macaron other than the one we tried. We got cotton candy flavored macarons, and fully expected them to taste like that artificial cotton candy flavored ice cream or something. They tasted, well, they had a taste I guess. All I could "taste" was the actually texture of the macaron and the rock-hard filling. The filling had a slight vanilla taste on its own, but the macaron was very, very, bland. As my friend described it, it tasted like "blue". It looked cool though, with a blue exterior and a watercolor-ish design on top. -Service: 2.5/5 So after we got our boba, and my friend physically couldn't drink hers, we went up to the counter to say that something was wrong with it and ask for a different flavor or them to remake it. The employee said no, that it was against their policy. My mother asked for the manager. The employee's supervisor came out and said the same thing, that is was against company policy and that their was nothing that could be done. Basically, even if they make a drink wrong or inedible, they will not remake it or offer a refund. Be warned. Other than that we had to wait about 5-10ish minutes for our drinks in the first place which isn't super bad. -Overall; solid 2.5/5 Meh, could've been worse but I don't think I'll be back. If you're looking for better (and cheaper) boba, the next closest shop is The Wok in the Crystal Mall foodcourt in Waterford. The drinks are...

If you or your guests have any allergies, save yourself a phone call, and avoid. My husband is severely allergic to tree nuts. Everywhere else we've made reservations, I've called ahead and warned the staff about it so they know. With Alice in the Village, all they kept saying is "we can't guarantee anything". I asked if there's any scone or sandwich he can have that doesn't have nuts inside (he can eat as long as it's not formally baked in). It's a simple enough question. I kept getting the same stock answer without any further elaboration: "we can't guarantee anything". I understand that businesses are scared of any liability and that they would warn us that food could contain cross-contamination. But with this one, I felt that we didn't have any other choice but to cancel our reservation. There was no accommodation, no trying, nothing to see if there could be anything done.

Edited to respond to message below: Excuse me, but what is petty and uncalled for is your unprofessional and snarky response. I gave you a one star review because of your business's complete ineptness to respond adequately to what is becoming very common now: allergies. And I did so while refraining to call you names, contrary to what YOU did in your response. My husband, more so, and I, to some extent, live with his allergies every day. We don't need to deal with a holier-than-thou attitude about how your business cares more about his life than we do. You are only protecting your business. And I actually understand that. Just don't pretend it's altruism. And again while I understand that, what I criticize your business for is not that you're trying to protect yourself, but for the unprofessional and inept way in which you handled my phone call (and now my review). The person I got on the phone kept saying, "we can't guarantee anything" and repeating that instead of showing EMPATHY and saying something like: We can't guarantee anything because most of our products have almond flour. We would love to have you, but know that there might be cross-contamination. We actually like small businesses because they can cater better to my husband's allergies by checking exactly which ingredients go into each of their products - something bigger corporations often can't do. But if you can't do even that, then simple courtesy and empathy will do - again something we are more used to from smaller businesses. If your staff is not trained in even that (judging from our interaction on the phone and your review, you're in dire need of PR management), then this is the kind of review you will...

Brought my daughter as a surprise for her birthday Thankfully she enjoyed it because she loves going out for tea, but that's were the good ends. We paid almost $100 for four people to have tea in their "tea room", which was just a regular room with tables. Served tea in coffee mugs. When you look at the menu for tea for one it's a decent amount of food, but even though you're paying 3x the price for tea-for-three, you DO NOT get 3x the food or tea. They know this and told us that it's just how they do it... But of course they don't tell you this until you wait ages for the tiny amount of food they bring out, and then they only tell you when you comment on the small amount of food. Everything looked like they bought it at a bakery except for the finger sandwiches, which were obviously homemade. White bread with the crusts cut off, with a teeny tiny amount of filling inside. Definitely left feeling hungry after spending almost $100. The "experience" was not an experience and the food was lacking. Absolutely never going again. The waitstaff was kindof creepy how they kept peeking out of the back area (which is just partitioned with a cloth).

One last thing, after I made the reservation they called me the same day to confirm that reservation. Except they called me at 8 at night from a restricted phone number and that is after opening hours so I could not call them back. They did not answer their phone the entire next day before our...