Henry’s Tea Room

5/8/12 – Your broadcast and Henry’s website does not state that “reservations” are highly suggested but both should state this.  Henry’s own website under FAQs says reservations are only required for parities of 7 or over and for their special events.   If the use of reservations had been stressed, I would not be writing dissenting remarks about my almost experience at this establishment.

My friend and I had looked forward to enjoying our first experience at Henry’s Tea Room in Lee’s Summit.  Based on our experience today, however good the food might be, we can not recommend the Tea Room based on “service” and lack of managing our expectations.   We arrived at 11:15 a.m. and went directly to the Tea Room to see if or when they could seat us as we did not have reservations – if they had no opennings we would have come back another day or if they had an openning later this afternoon, we would have done that.  

There were 2 other parties of 2 who did not have reservations.  We were all told that they had a number of reserved seatings to sit first but that all 3 parties would be seated in the next 10-15 minutes about 11:30.  It wasn’t until 11:45 minutes later that 1 party of 2 was seated and the remaining 2 parties told it would might be another few minutes for us as they had to sit those with reservations first………By noon, 45 min after our arrival and being told that they would have seating available in 10-15 minutes, they were now saying as they were behind in seating those with reservations it might be another 30 minutes at best for either party to be seated.  Please note that while waiting, we also observed that the seating of parties with reservations were regularly told that there was a 10 min wait for the party to be seated.  It appeared that they may have a problem managing time allotted for clients’ meals.  We left almost an hour after our arrival as the number of clients with reservations waiting to be seated was increasing as well as our wait time. 

If we’d been advised when we arrived that there would have been a minimum hour wait, we would have come back at another time to try ths CHECK PLEASE suggested venue and hopefully found the fare to be as good as advised.