Drink Me! Tea Room — Restaurant in Tempe

Have very mixed views about our recent visit. We've been here in the past and have very fond memories of it. Our most recent experience was not great. I was optimistic because they were gracious and accommodating when I revised my reservation the day before. When we arrived the girls weren't super welcoming. My friend was late and they clearly weren't happy about it. When she's asked about the food the girl made a snarky remark how they explain the food when you get there. She clearly missed that part because she was late. We'd been here before and had both tea and a cocktail. We were a little confused why we didn't all get tea because we chose the Tipsy option. Our mistake. We must have gotten the Literary option previously and added on a cocktail. The girl who helped us get a pot added was the only friendly worker we had. We were also a little surprised to see gratuity added for only 3 people. Service definitely wasn't worth the 20% they automatically added. I'm a great tipper when the service warrants. This didn't. The snackies were ultimately good. The carrot crostini was fantastic, maybe my favorite item. The radish open faced sandwich was not good. There wasn't enough shear and the bread was soooo dry. I did like how thin the radish was sliced though. The scones were a crowd favorite. The cherry tart and little donut were so good. The Alice tea is one of my favorites around. I'll likely be getting it to go from now on. The gifty area has some really great stuff. This was my mother in laws Xmas gift and they weren't very nice or helpful. They dropped a couple things at our table with no explanation. We didn't know what the jars of tea they dropped off were about until I overheard them explaining they were the holiday flavors to the next table and we're meant to be smelled. We had to tell my MIL that adding lemon to the Alice tea changed it's color. She doesn't care for lemon and would have never known if we hadn't told her. The only reason we knew is because they told us the first time we went there. A little bummed walking away. Had nothing but great things to say about this spot before today. Amazing ambiance but service has room for improvement. P. S. All vegan which is great for my plant based friends, but...

12/7/24: Short version - wonderful experience, stellar staff, fantastic cocktails, beautifully themed decorations. It can be pricey, and if you're not vegan or a fan of gluten-free items, you may be unwilling to give it a try ... but don't let that stop you. We had three people at our afternoon tea, and none of us are vegan; we still had a great two hours.

Longer version - * reservations are required * I am writing this a month late, but whoa, the experience still resonates. My sister was visiting and we always do one "big" thing while she's here. This trip it was Drink Me! Their holiday theme was Alice in Wonderland, and boy did they go all out on decorations. Their cocktails were aptly named, presented well, and tasted so damn good. Every single one of them. Yes, some were better than others, but between the three of us, we tried every one of their special tea cocktails from the menu and no lie, all good!

The menus are presented in old books (what a novel idea! pun intended), they compost 95% of their materials (food, napkins, paper cups, etc), the staff was on top of their game the entire visit, and every single one was uber-friendly (kudos to our main server, Nekiyah).

As I said, none of us are vegan or have gluten issues. With regard to the food items, some were better than others. The mini sandwiches were very good and seasoned well, it was the dessert items that I would not go for again -- but that's because I am addicted to sugar. ;-) There was a wide variety and a couple of them were not horrible, but my experience / view regarding gluten-free dessert items has always been that they are dense and lack flavor. Despite that, the food tray had excellent presentation and the desserts were decorated in a way that you could tell the bakers took their time.

All three of us walked out of Drink Me! saying "WOW, what a trip! Let's do that again." Our final bill, minus tip, was $209. It was worth every penny. There are different tiers for menu selections (we chose one of the upper tiers) so please don't let the cost deter you from trying Drink Me! It is a fun place, especially if you have a special occasion...

Had THE MOST AMAZING time here at their Harry Potter event. The treats were AMAZING 🤤 their teas/mock tails were mind blowing 🤯 and the staff were the kindest most amazing humans I’ve ever met ❤️ 100000/10 experience, would HIGHLY recommend to anyone in the Tempe/Mesa area!!! Also, I could not believe their entire menu was vegan AND gluten free- it was so delicious and I would never had known if they didn’t tell me!

I would also highly recommend Drink Me! for anyone needing a safe space. The staff is truly so kind, welcoming, and accommodating 😍❤️ A beautiful story illustrating this (and I have 100% permission to post this) is this date my sister and I just had there. Soph was insanely anxious about being in a new place with lots of strangers- I totally understand as I’ve been there with social anxiety! Well, I reached out to their customer service email about our reservation just to see if we could be sat in a quiet/private place and they delivered! The manager Dusty reached out immediately and told me they were fully booked, but she switched things around to put us in a corner in the quietest part of the tea room. She said she’d let the staff know about Soph’s anxiety and that they’d be happy to help us with anything we needed. We went there today and they were true to their word- the staff was so soft with Soph, remembered the note I wrote about us celebrating her starting high school and congratulated her on it, and made sure she was comfortable the entire time. Dusty even stopped by to say hi and make sure everything was how we needed it. It made me want to cry with how kind and sweet they were to us and everyone else in the tea room. It felt incredibly personalized and it is a memory I will...