Prince Tea House — Restaurant in Virginia Beach

Apart from the atmosphere, there's little from my experience at Prince Tea House that I'm happy with. I made a reservation for 30 people for a private event. They only do private events Mon through Thursday. They quoted me for $650. This includes afternoon teas for 30 people, was the initial quote. They asked for $100 deposit. Cool. They also said they'd include a table for decorating and that we could bring our own food.

I ended up having to reschedule to a Saturday, which they accommodated. However, since the event would no longer be private, I asked if there's a reduced price or if I could just pay for the food off menu. No. I was told it's still $650 altogether. Okay, no problem.

The day before, I called to confirm everything and ask how much food was included. I was then told that $650 only covers 20 people. For 30 people it would be $967. I said I only want the $650 quoted to me. I ended up buying and bringing food from Wegmans to make sure all my guests could eat enough since it was too late to cancel.

When they saw us put our food out on the decorating table, they took issue and told us to get rid of it. My husband told them we would leave it out, so they eventually relented.

The teas did not come with sugars, milk, honey or spoons. I found this unusual especially for the price. The food was alright, but nothing to write home about.

Everything was fine until we got billed. Gratuity was included, but my husband tipped $100 dollars extra since we were a large party. We even left earlier than our quoted time by about half an hour and cleaned up.

Later, my husband realized that they charged an extra $100 instead of applying the deposit, like they'd said they would. Overall, this is not a great place to reserve for parties because there is no contract or anything that tells you all the stipulations, so any of the staff can change them and tell you anything, which is what happened to me.

I'm quite livid, but it's an expensive...

I really hate to write this but my experience here was so, so disappointing and I'd like them to see this before they do their grand opening so that they can maybe work on things and improve.

I came here for my birthday with my husband on August 26. We ordered the afternoon tea for 2 and an appetizer of takoyaki. To say the spread was disappointing is an understatement.

For $54, we got: 2 pots of tea ($8.50 each), about 3 teacups each 8 tiny squares of single piece of bread "sandwiches" (one bite each) 2 smaller-than-palm sized scones with 2 teeny pots of cream and jam 2 macarons that were just larger than a quarter 2 tiny pots of chocolate mousse, again about the size of a quarter 2 tiny pies, again one bite

So, essentially the food was $37, which is insanity.

If you look at the photo on their menu, it looks like a lot more. They show 2 entire slices of cake! The macarons were absolutely pathetically small, didn't taste good. The mousse was "fine". The pies were awful, the pastry tasted terrible. The scones were fine, if you actually got some cream and jam with them. The sandwiches were fine, bread was kinda hard and stale.

The tea was great - both flavors were nice. Takoyaki was fine.

But that's kind of where it ended. Everything was sort of meh. Definitely did not feel like a premium dining experience (again, $54 + takoyaki cost for this), the service was non-existent. We had someone take our order, drop our stuff on the table, and then a teenage boy came out of the back to awkwardly check on us 40 minutes later. We were there for an hour and never got asked if we wanted anything else, our plates and cups weren't taken away, etc.

The servers were up front on their phones not really doing anything, the place wasn't busy. We were just expecting a much nicer dining experience for over $70 not...

I have been to Prince Tea House twice prior to my visit today. I have always had a wonderful experience except for today. I brought my friends to treat one of them for their birthday however our experience was not as enjoyable as we had hoped. The store was not very busy when we arrived yet we were sat in the back near the bathrooms. Although our food and tea came out promptly, I will say the quality has decreased significantly since the last time I visited. I had ordered the smoked salmon sandwich but was given the smoked salmon salad. At the time it wasn’t an issue until they brought me the sandwich. It was very clear that they rushed to get it done and just pulled the scraps from the salad and put it on my plate. The sandwich was very small and 90% tomatoes when I had asked for no tomatoes due to dietary restrictions. Our server was not the best and did not check up on us, forgot multiple items that had asked for, and overall felt as if she was purposely ignoring because we are young and she thought we wouldn’t tip. We had asked our server for sugar and she did not bring it to us until we had finished our tea. For the pricing you would expect the experience and service to justify the price and how much people are willing to spend here. In my honest opinion, I will not be back and will be telling my family and friends not to return. Overall the service was terrible, the quality was mediocre AT BEST, and it is overpriced for what you will receive. EDIT: I would’ve gave 1 star however the person who sat us...