Naseem T.
Yelp
Came to Teavolve today for brunch with a friend. Didn't find a way to make an advance reservation on their website or OpenTable (although certainly may have missed it) so arrived just before 12 to be informed of a 45 minute wait. The place was hopping, so no surprise. I took a seat (3 feet away from the host stand) and waited with my friend. It was very loud and a number of patrons cleared out after I'd been waiting around ten minutes, so occasionally I glanced down at my handbag to keep an eye on my phone, and at one point, after we'd been waiting only 20 minutes, realized that I had a missed call from 3 (literal) minutes earlier. The voicemail consisted of just hold music, so I assumed it wasn't them but googled the number to check. It was the restaurant. I walked up to the host stand and said, "hi, I'm sorry but I just realized I missed your call a couple of minutes ago." The hostess (red shirt, black pants, blonde hair 3/12/23) asked me name and upon my answer, immediately responded with attitude. "I called your phone 4 times AND I called your name multiple times as well!" Double checking my phone later, I see they called twice, so I'm not sure why she lied (especially since I wouldn't even expect them to call more than once) OR why she lead with attitude, especially given my polite tone and preemptive apology and the fact that only 3 minutes had passed since she called! She repeated that she'd called multiple times and called my name and at this point, I'm not sure what to say. I already apologized, I said I didn't hear you, do you want me to grovel? Either you have a table or you don't, and either way is fine, but lose the entitled and aggressive attitude. She finally said, the only table I have is over there and gestures to a table that is totally fine, so I responded as such, "that's fine with us!" and she walked us over without another word. I'm blown by the unnecessary rudeness and animosity at missing the call, especially when it came in less than half the expected timeframe and I approached her minutes later. It definitely put a damper on our experience.
I ordered the Thai tea latte, which tasted nothing like Thai tea and the turkey panini, which was supposed to come with turkey, turkey bacon, onion jam and scallion cream cheese, but was missing the cream cheese, so was pretty flavorless. Our server, Troy, was fine, but didn't approach us again except for right after our food was dropped off until the bill came, so I didn't have an opportunity to ask for my sandwich to be remade properly. As a server, I'd ask if everything was ok when I saw the entire meal still plated with two bites missing, but to each their own.
I love this place for the vibe and the extensive drink menu but after this experience, probably won't be back. There are too many great places in Baltimore with good food and courteous service to go back somewhere where the staff is blatantly rude.