Sugar Magnolia Cafe — Restaurant in Wake Forest

Cute venue with good food. Unfortunately, the customer service was non-existant. I hosted my baby shower here and the entire party was poorly organized. I contacted the owner to ask about venue availability and was provided a time and date recommendation, which I proceeded to book. I was told repeatedly that this venue hosts parties like this all the time and would have everything setup and handled for us, which seemed ideal. Day of the party: we arrived just before the scheduled start time. There were not enough tables set out for gifts and the guest book, but when my mother in law asked for an additional table she was rudely told that they had none to spare as the shower was scheduled during their busy time and was very inconvenient for them. Fast forward to the end of the party when we were abruptly told that we needed to have all of the presents, decorations, and guests cleared out in 8 minutes. We had not even begun opening presents yet: clearly the two hour time frame that they recommended was not enough time for the party. The venue had scheduled another party to begin just 30 minutes after mine was scheduled to end, unbeknownst to us, not allowing any buffer time for us to say our goodbyes or pack everything up. We ended up standing on the sidewalk with a pile of presents on a bench, trying to thank guests who had traveled from all over to attend the shower. Chaos. When I discussed all of this with the owner, Christine, after the fact, she repeatedly blamed the issues on the fact that they don’t normally schedule parties at that time of day (why she scheduled my party then is beyond me - I wouldn’t have chosen to have a party during a time when I’d be getting poor quality service) and the fact that my guests arrived late (they didn’t). I spoke to her, along with my husband, after the fact and she was very forceful with her opinions on why the party didn’t work. My husband tried to provide constructive criticism to avoid further scenarios such as ours in the future and it was received with further excuses/no accountability. Overall, it could be a nice venue but I’ve never been pushed out of a place with so much lack of care. Their inability to recognize the event over their revenue really has deterred me from ever visiting this establishment...

This is the most accommodating, most supportive place to go if you have food allergies. I brought my mom, sister, and niece to visit our aunt in Wake Forest (we live in Utah) and brought all the girls to have the Magnolia Tea Service. Three out of the six ladies in attendance have major food allergies, and some are unusual and all are very specific. I booked the reservation online and immediately let the owner know about all the food allergies. They constantly communicated with me in the weeks and days leading up to our visit, including the two days before, just to make sure they had everything right. The service and food were amazing and we had the best time. My cousin, who has celiac said the bread was the best gluten-free bread she’s ever had, my mom can’t have cheese or chocolate so they made special items for her and my sister is allergic to a number of foods and they again, made special items for her, all of which were delicious. I highly recommend this place. Make a reservation online and tell them your needs ahead of time. They will take such good...

tl;dr: Place is cute, tea was bitter, coffee cake was good, overall experience was fine.

It's a cute place with sort of rustic-fancy decor, almost like shabby chic but more brown.

When we first walked in, we weren't sure how it worked because there was a coffee shop-style counter, but also tables with place settings. I don't think we were greeted or helped, and it was a little confusing (though it's not their fault that I didn't see the "order here" sign on the counter at first).

Our green tea was bitter; I think it was brewed with water that was too hot. That's a real shame at a place with so much focus on tea.

My "hot baked soft pretzel" was room temperature, and I didn't really like the mustard dip because it seemed to have a lot mayonnaise. The pretzel was tasty though. My friend wasn't particularly impressed with the capresse sandwich, though there was nothing specifically wrong with it.

We also tried the cinnamon coffee cake and we both thought that it was very...