Enjoy the Experience

Running the Tea Room has been a delightful  experience for me. The pleasure of watching people experience the character, the ambiance, of a Tea Room with childlike wonder and seeing their surprise that the taste of food that is different from their usual fare is actually delicious gives me such deep satisfaction. After all, my sole purpose of having a Tea Room is to introduce people to a healthy way of eating.

It is unfortunate that so many people are fearful of trying something different.  To commit to drive out in rural Tennessee for an "Earthy Zen" Tea Room Experience and taste vegan and gluten-free morsels takes more motivation than most individuals have.  Some adventuresome souls may venture out, but they are few and far between.  However groups do delight in sharing little adventures.  A family get-together, a birthday celebration, a club's special meeting - all see an Afternoon Tea in the country as a very special and what turns out to be a delicious outing.

Thus I have found that having the Tea Room open "to the public" on Sundays has been very disappointing.  Most Sundays I have had no one come.  Usually when someone comes that day, it will only be two people.  When I first opened up, I prepared enough food to cover the possibility of a room full of people.  After a couple of months, I realized that this was a costly mistake!

Vegan and gluten-free ingredients that are organic and/or local cost somewhat more than conventional ingredients - although the gap is lessening over time.  With no cheap fillers like dairy, flour and sugar in any recipe, the cost of the recipe becomes much more than people would believe.  I believe that the cost is greatly offset by the reduction in cost for medical issues as a result of eating so healthy.  At least I have found that true for me.  So what a shame to waste that food!

With much regret, I had to require reservations for Sundays (like I do for groups on Mondays) so that I could prepare the amount of food that would actually be consumed and no more than that.  That saved waste.  But it did not save my costs.  I still lost money as a business, if I served less than four people on any one day.  That is only about costs, and does not consider the time I take in menu planning and food preparation.

With all this in mind, I am realizing that to remain as a viable business, reservations for groups of 4 or more need to be required for Sundays, just as I require for Mondays.  The difference would be that on Mondays a group can reserve the whole Tea Room for the three hours (11 AM to 2 PM), while Sundays the reservation would be for one hour starting at 11 AM, noon or 1 PM.  Also Sundays reservations can be made for Afternoon Tea or Dessert Tea, while for Mondays only Afternoon Tea is served. In either case (Sunday or Monday) reservations need to be made at least a week in advance so that ingredients can be purchased and preparations started.

With these changes, I am able to continue providing an "Earthy Zen" Tea Room experience with healthy and delicous vegan and gluten-free dishes. Are you motivated to try it? I look forward to serving you.