Mimi's Tea Cottage — Restaurant in West Chester

I really wanted to like this place a lot, it looked so promising . The decor is super cute and definitely photo worthy. We were a party of 5 crammed into a table for 4 in a corner. There was no room on the table for all the teapots and plates and teacups and food. It was very difficult to maneuver everything. The reservation was booked way in advance so I was hoping we would have had a proper table for our party. We were celebrating a birthday and there was no special detail for a birthday, no candle or anything. Which is fine, we didn’t really ask but we did mention in the reservation.

While we were cramped on the tiny table (one of the chairs was butting out into the walkway with loads of people and staff constantly passing behind ,), they started to clear the table next to ours and to our shock they just started throwing the food and crumbs that were on the table to the floor as they wiped the table to get it ready for the next party.

The food came and for 5 people it was all cramped onto one tiered stand. There was one ounce sized dollop of lemon curd and clotted cream for the 5 of us. The desserts were falling apart from being pile do to the same plate. The deserts were not particularly good. The Apple crumble was underbaked. The snickers candy tasting bar was messy and falling apart. The scones were good and the sandwiches weren’t bad. Nothing crazy though. I would have liked something with a little more flavor, not something I could easily prepare at home. The quiche was actually my favorite thing I ate. It was tasty. The tea selection I also thought was good.

The service was not the best. No one came to check on whether we needed more water or tea. We had to ask for more. And the teapots looked like they had never been scrubbed on the inside. Ever!!!!

We’ve had a lot of other high tea experiences in the area and this one just did not live up to the hype. The restaurant looks super cute and is well decorated but I wish the staff had been more attentive, and the food, particularly the desserts need some major overhauls.

Lastly I visited the bathroom before leaving and the wooden floor was so rotted that the heel from my stiletto shoe fell through the floor and I was temporarily stuck.

Like I said there was so much potential here and I wanted to give this place a better rating but it was not deserved on this...

My daughter took me here, along with my granddaughter, for an early Mother's Day celebration. I love trying different tea flavors and was excited to go out for tea with my two favorite women. The place was very charming and nicely decorated. I really wanted to love this place. We ordered our first pot of tea that seemed to take longer than it should have. There was a nice tea selection so I was eager to try a second tea while I was there. We selected and ordered our food choice when we ordered our 1st pot of tea. An hour after we were seated our food came out. The food wasn't really worth the wait but pretty much what I expected. The tea seemed watered down and didn't stay hot very long. The 3 of us selected our 2nd tea choice from the menu but our server was on the other side of the room and it took her a while to make her way back to our table. When she finally got back to our table, we ordered our 2nd pot of tea. When that finally came to the table, we spent about 10 minutes sipping our tea. Then our server reappeared and told us we were going to have to “move this along.” In other words, she was asking us to leave because they needed the table. I reminded her that the reason why we were still at the table was because we had to wait so long for the food and to order our 2nd pot of tea. That didn’t seem to matter because they still needed our table for a birthday party. Very disappointing. For the price they charged for watered down tea, tasteless tea sandwiches, and slow service, I will not be returning. I really didn’t want to write a negative review since my daughter put so much thought into doing this for me, however, she agreed that we had a disappointing experience. There aren’t too many places like this around and it seemed to be a popular little place. Hopefully someone will read this review and use it as a way to improve your little gem. Not cool to ask your guests to...

I made a reservation and they asked for any dietary restrictions. I told them me and my baby both can't have dairy. They said they could accommodate. They called the day before to confirm our reservation, again said they could accommodate because we can tolerate baked dairy. Then day of they texted at 10:15, literally 15 minutes before our reservation to ask if we still wanted to keep our reservation because their sandwiches (which are all premade) all contain dairy. We still kept our reservation but then the entire time we were there we had to ask a bunch of questions about what contained dairy and they still brought us out a brownie with whipped cream on it. Then they brought out a brownie without whipped cream and said it was dairy free but it had chocolate chips inside so I'm not certain. I am really hoping my daughter doesn't have a reaction. I breast feed and when I have dairy it makes her sick, we've been dairy free for 7 months and just recently started reintroducing it slowly with the milk ladder and I'm supposed to be one step behind her so my milk remains safe for her to have. If I would've known that this would be hard for them to accommodate I would've waited to visit but they made it sound like it'd be okay. Even the day before they made it sound okay, I just don't understand why they'd wait 15 minutes before the reservation to mention that basically everything contains dairy. Since they asked about our dietary restrictions I figured they would be able to accommodate and would make sure the kitchen knew...instead it was super stressful for all involved. I ended up having some things from the kids menu but again they brought out the brownie with whipped cream, if I hadn't been so inquisitive I probably would've just eaten it since I had mentioned over and over that I couldn't have dairy. Our server was nice but overall it was a...