Olive Branch Cafe and Tea Room — Restaurant in Tacoma

Worst experience ever! I wish I could give them a zero star. let’s started with their time limitation. When we were making reservation, we didn’t see anyplace said that we only have one and half hour to eat, neither hear anything about it over the phone with their employee. two of our friends were late, then we been told that we need to finish our food in short time and our table is booked out to other customers after 12:30, which is doesn’t make sense at all since the whole place was pretty empty. We questioned about the time limitation, she said the combo we ordered doesn’t need that long to finish. Unless we order more food. WOW, basically, we been told that we need to spend more money to stay longer. We were so excited about this tea party experiences and looking forwards to having some mommies alone time, now we were being pushed which was NOT cool! If they were really busy, then I can totally understand, but it was NOT busy AT ALL!!!!!! Ok, fine, we can bear that, that’s their rules!

The food taste just ok, the tea isn’t bad.

The most disgusting reason why I leave this review is that they were being very rude and arrogant. We found the muddy dirt on their strawberries, mentioned to their employee, hopefully they will be more caution when they are serving other customers , we shared the thoughts with their waiters, she completely ignored and pass the bill to us. We were shocked, couldn’t believed being pushed like this. Mentioned again about their hygiene, she kept saying the strawberries were washed and no problems at all, we went through a little argument, then she called another guy came over, we showed him the muddy dirt on the leafs , he said “ you don’t eat the leafy part do you?” , Are you kidding me? I couldn’t believe what I was just heard, they were having the hygiene issues, no apologies, the whole attitude were way off, acting like we are the ones who were trying to cause issues. What’s the point being so rude, all they have to do were a simple apology! What a joke!!!

And wait, don’t trust their online menu either, we thought one bowl of chowder was $5.5, being charged of $8, asked them why, they said their menu were changed, again, no apology!!!!

So NO, we will never go...

My friend and I were here on July 31, 2021. It was my pick because of the tea room ambiance along with proximity to the museum of glass. We were greeted warmly by the hostess, who encouraged us to look around and admire the many antiques. This place has potential to be much better with a few attentions to detail. First, I admit we had the bar set high for a tea room because of our many trips to the Queen Mary Tea Room in north Seattle; in our opinion, the gold standard outside of Victoria, BC. The atmosphere here was indeed very relaxing and attractive.

The first area of improvement: never, ever should a food server handle silverware by the business end! And doing so right in front of us was particularly off-putting. My friend and I immediately dipped our utensils in the water glass to wash them.

The signature item, tea, was a great disappointment. We suspected it was made with tea bags, and not the robust brews we were accustomed to showing tea leaves in the pot, complete with strainer and timer for controlling steepness.

I had a curried tuna half sandwich with tomato soup & side salad. Very tasty. I did wonder if the soup was made from scratch. It reminded me of Campbell’s tomato bisque, which I like.

A word about the scones: we were so excited at the prospect of having homemade scones, we ordered these first before the main meal. Can’t adequately express the disappointment. I’ve made better scones with Fisher’s Fair mix. Any bakery I’ve ever been to has better scones. We would have each taken a bag home if they hadn’t been so ordinary. Think of one of those frozen Pillsbury crescent rolls in a tube. Even that doesn’t describe them well. All we can say is, skip the scones.

I would discourage The ‘hat’ room, particularly in light of these pandemic times. We were not fans of trying on hats that many others had worn.

Finally, wearing masks at half mast (noses out) is a NO NO for any restaurant worker. Shields up please.

My friend and I decided we were one and done for the Olive Branch. Nothing remarkable to get us to return. If you want the novelty of a girly tea party setting, your ladies...

I have to say I was extremely disappointed. My family requested a duchess tea service for 4 and had set reservations well in advance. We informed on the reservation that we have dietary needs for vegetarian and asked if that could be accommodated and were told it would be.

When we arrived we were greeted by the piano player. The waitress was with us after a short break as she had been the lone person working the floor. She sat us and asked what salad dressing we would like. 3 wanted one type, then 1 another. Fairly simple. She came back and said they ran out of the dressing, so one of us needed to pick something else. Fine.

We then move to tea, and she explained we need to pick 2 teas and she can refill the pots if needed. Since I was paying nearly $50 per person, I thought this meant we EACH picked 2 flavors - after all, we each purchased a TEA package. No, sadly, we were told our party of 4 had to choose 2 teas to share. My birthday kid chose Blueberry and Chai from the menu, only to be told they were out of the Chai, unless we want decaf. Ok, we will make do with decaf.

We pour our first cups and get ready to drink - but the birthday kiddo had a fruit fly in their cup. We grabbed another setting and they pour a nee cup and keep going, sending that to the kitchen with the waitress.

The food came out and it was pitifully small and the waitress described chicken curry. I mentioned the reservations were for vegetarian and she took it back to the kitchen. 30 minutes later, we have clearly freezer to table food. Many of the dessert items we were familiar with - they sell the macaroons at Trader Joe's and I can't quite place the min frozen cheesecake bites but know they are past date after a nibble. We left a good portion of the food behind.

Unfortunately we did suffer food illness after the sandwiches. 2 of us were quite sick for several hours. This is very disappointing. The waitress did the best with what she had, I didn't feel right taking away from her, as she was so sweet and honestly, I know she doesn't buy the food. But I paid over $200.00 and had to take my family out to eat after -...