Waioli Tea Room

Aww man, I just saw this place is closed :-(So writing my review is probably pointless but I love it here and wanted to provide my 2 cents anyway. Plus hey, you never know, maybe it could reopen? lol. Anyway. the setting is so pretty and the atmosphere is great! I had lunch here a few times with my mom and some girlfriends. Definitely the perfect place for that. The food was pretty tasty and service was great. No complaints here. I’m bummed I won’t get to go next time I visit home! :-(

What a shock. Arrived in the islands a few days ago and have been so anticipating lunch at Waioli tea room. I was stunned to arrive and find that it’s closed. Kaput since December! The five stars are for the wonderful memories. Please, somebody, lease this place and return it to the glory it once was. So many happy memories from there. So much is changing here it’s scary. So many restaurants and cafes I knew from even a year ago are gone. International Market Place — gone. Will stop moaning now and try and figure out where to find something even as remotely wonderful as Waioli…

Beautiful setting and fabulous food; the rest leaves a bit to be desired. It’s the kind of place church goers take their family on Sunday.
Initially the tea room seemed to have a country club like atmosphere, however that notion quickly dissipated. When we arrived the host stand was abandoned and remained so for over five minutes. When an employee finally appeared we were not even acknowledged, and were quickly brushed off when we made any attempt to speak with the hostess. In total we waited about thirty minutes before being seated, which would have been fine if we were not waiting in suspense for twenty of them.
The service in general was fine. It took a while after being seated for menus to arrive at our table and the waitress showed up a while after that. Water was never offered (we didn’t ask for it either, to be fair).
The food! The food was absolutely delicious. We both ordered the salmon eggs benedict, and I don’t regret getting my own order either as I would not have wanted to share! Their hollandaise sauce had a complexity that I haven’t tasted anywhere else on the island (eggs benedict is kind of my jam so…). The salmon was placed on foccacia bread instead of the traditional english muffins and topped of course with a poached egg. The breakfast potatoes that were served with salmon benedict were lightly seasoned with oregano and had more flavor than your average breakfast side. In a word: fabu-f*n-lous.
I would like to give the Waioli Tea Room another go sometime in the near future and will be happy to augment my review accordingly. I believe any dissatisfaction we experienced was simply due to general disorganization and lack of staff.

Cute little place to host an intimate party with your girlfriends.
Came here for the first time to celebrate one of my friends Bridal Shower. We had our very own private room. Brunch buffet style. Food was a-​okay: Portugeses sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs, loco moco and french toast.
We each paid about $ 29 which included 1 drink. Free Parking

My Sorority had a Saturday Tea and event here. The food was bite size and fun. Great flavored teas and over 30 to choose from. I will be back to take my mother who will enjoy this hidden jewel.

We had high tea and it was scrumptious! They had two types of spoonful dishes~beets and lentils. The flavors were so good.
The service was impeccable. Sue would stop by to check on hot water, she was great! Don was also very accommodating.
It has been hot lately but Manoa was very comfortable.
Love the gardens but some look dry like they need water.
Bought coffee and tea in the gift shop.

I ended up coming here together with my mom for breakfast. I wasnt impressed my last time here and after today, I guarantee neither myself or my family will be back.
The place was nearly empty when we arrived and there was new wait staff and a new looking menu. My mom ordered a veggie omelet with potatoes, but when her food came out the potatoes looked disgusting and the omelet was inedible for her. When the waitress came to clear her plate, the waitress asked my mom about the food and my mom said she didn’t care for it and thought the spinach in the omelet was canned. A few moments later the chef came out and angrily accused my mom of spreading rumors and shoved an invoice in her face. It got worse from there, and all I wanted to do was get our check band leave.
Fortunately the assistant manager came later and comped us for our meal. However, after the way the chef spoke to my mom I definitely won’t be coming back. Honestly, the food wasn’t really good and my mom said she felt sick for the rest of the day.
Overall, a very disappointing experience.

Ate at this restaurant on 7÷29÷14. It’s located in Manoa and is very cool and breezy. The restaurant is easy to find and easily accessible. There is tons of parking.
Now for the sit-​down experience. Our waiter was Steven and he was very friendly and energetic. He had great knowledge of the menu and good input on deciding what to eat. My wife had the roast beef sandwich with au jus and my mom and I had the pan seared ahi over cous cous. We got our complimentary scone quickly, but then waited a substantial amount of time before receiving our meals.
This is where it goes downhill. The ahi plates were seared perfectly, but my wife’s meal was less than appetizing. Her salad was not fresh. The greens in her salad were bruised and many of the leaves had brown edges. The tomato wedge in her salad was actually starting to rot. We alerted Steven, he apologized, retrieved a fork from we believe the kitchen, speared the tomato from her plate and took it back. He did not take the whole plate to get a fresh salad. Just the tomato. My wife was very put off. He did bring a plate of freshly cut tomatoes, but the damage was already done.
The desserts were good, but I felt as though they were gathering the ingredients and making them at that moment because we waited about another 20 minutes before receiving them and it was not busy at all. The cake at the base of the lilikoi chiffon cake was dry and had a grainy texture. The lemon basil sorbet was quite refreshing and pleasant on the palate.
After all that, we asked for the check and waited an additional 20 minutes and had to ask Steven for our processed check. He replied with, «Oh, I thought you guys were just having good conversation.» Though he was quick on his feet, we know he forgot about us.
All in all, I would like to give this place another try and maybe this was just a bad day for the restaurant.

So I always wanted to do tea time and theres many places on the island to choose from– The Veranda in Kahala, tea at 1024, and i think the Moana Surfrider offers something to name a few. But I decided to try out Waioli Tea Room because of location, from the review they had unique deserts and because it was a little cheaper ($ 27– still expensive) then the other tea places I looked up.
First off I called a few times to try to get a person on the phone to make a reservation. I kept on getting the answering machine so I decided to leave a message with my name and number. They did called about 45 minutes later but to my surprise besides confirming the reservation they wanted a credit card number in case we pulled a no show. To be honest this conversation made me not so excited to go, even thought of canceling. But I wanted to experience tea time with my friend and daughter.
So heres my opinion
PROS
Beautiful location in Manoa
Lots of parking
a great selection of tea — we got the hot cinnamon spice that tasted like big red gum and Strawberry kiwi which was okay
CONS
Sandwiches really really small (I knew before hand that the food wasn’t a filling meal but compared to a few pictures I’ve seen posted in Unilocal I was disappointed)
No unique deserts – (I was expecting an island twist to the desert but it was just chocolate and scones blah-​one of the main reason I wanted to go here)
Waiter was attentive but not helpful –(waiter did ask if this was our first time and explain the tea but that was it. He didn’t explain what was presented to us– their was a bigger party sitting across of us and their waiter was more informative then ours)
Overall I would never go back to do high tea there again! I’ll probably do lunch but theres other places to try tea and probably worth it.

A nice step back in time.
I came here on a whim. I came dressed in shorts, t-​shirt, and slippers. While everybody else was in their Sunday best. I felt bad, but was welcomed just the same.
The building is an historical site, but kept in good condition. We were seated outside under the roof eaves. It was a sunny day, but the outside seating was kept cool by ceiling fans and bug free. The only thing that could not be controlled were the birds. They walked around waiting for an opening to grab some food off the tables. They flew 1′ over my head two times. I felt the birds really trashed the experience. Birds are difficult to deal with, but the waiters did their jobs well and removed finished dishes so the birds got nothing. However, gutters and ledges show tons of bird droppings.
The timing was in between breakfast and lunch. We ended up getting lunch. I ordered the philly cheese steak. This sandwich was huge! The sandwich had a ton of meat. The potatoes were also great. I only wish there was more cheese. Please put cheese not only in the sandwich, but on top of the meat.
The service was good. The food took a little longer than expected, but our waitress was apologetic and let us try their signature bottled water. Plus, a tea place isn’t a place for a quick bite.
This place can be bumped up one star if they can limit the bird problems. It’s really unsanitary to have birds flying around food and constantly waving them away is very irritating.
Solution: Use spikes or taut fishing wire above the gutters to deter birds from perching. The ledges need a 45 degree slope to the wall so birds have no room to rest on them.

Arranging an event? Don’t bother coming here.
I tried calling about 5 times during business hours on a Monday, all calls went to an answering machine. After the 5^th try, I finally left a voicemail message, explaining that I was arranging a baby shower and was interested in learning more about their services for private parties.
By Friday, I never received a call back. All the other venues I contacted (Moana Surfrider, Halekulani, Tea at 1024, A Cup of Tea, The Kahala Hotel and Resort and the Mariposa) either were able to help me immediately, or replied to my voicemail message by the end of the day, despite the fact that it was the week before Mother’s Day weekend.
How disappointing, Waioli. For such an esteemed and historic venue you’d think they would pay more attention to customer service. Oh well, their loss.
You can be sure I’ll be taking my business somewhere else.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I came here so when I had breakfast here last weekend, it was like going for my first time again. We went for Sunday breakfast — called really last minute for a reservation as it was on a whim, and was given a seating time 20 mines from the phone call. Perfect.
A nicely and newly paved parking lot greeted us with ample parking and we walked into a time zone dating to the mid 1900s :) I just love how quaint and cute this place is! So lush with plant life, away from the hustle and bustle of things, really makes you feel like you jumped back a few years. Got seated right away and greeted by our friendly server.
Ordered the guava french toast with fresh fruits and whipped cream. It was delicious! First french toast that I’ve ever eaten that I did not have to use maple syrup! It was so good with the whipped cream.
I also ordered their plantation iced tea (PIT), cause as you know that’s my drink of choice, and it was really unique as the iced tea was made FRESH with their teas. It wasted really rich and like it was made from fresh tea leaves, with a splash of pineapple juice. Super unique and tasty.
The only downfall was that supposedly there was only one cook so the food took foreverrrrrrr and a day to come out. At least 30 – 40 minutes from when we ordered. If it wasn’t for the ambiance, nice wait staff, and good food, I would have given this place only 2 or 3 stars. I’m hoping that the cook staffing situation was one time only and they are much quicker on any other given day… but I guess I’ll just have to go back to know!

I hate waiting to be seated especially after making a reservation. We ended up waiting up to 15 minutes after our reserved time and im currently waititng for our food close to an hour after our reservation time.
Suprisingly this place still seems to be crowded on a saturday afternoon after graduation.
This wasnt my first pick but I was talked into it because of its nice atmosphere. While the atmosphere is great my growling tummy will get the best of me here. We havent had a waiter stop by since we orderer and refill our waters.
If youre going to take an hour to preparr the food, at least allow me to trick my stomach by filling it with water.
I can only hope the frittata I ordered makes up for the lacking service.
Parking is quite full saturday. I dont know why!

A little hidden gem in Manoa that offers the largest selection of tea I ever seen. Literally, they roll out a cart with all the tea. A group of my friends and I went for a late lunch, the soup and sandwich was definitely the way to go. Food tasted decent, but beware that there might be little flies or bugs on your sandwich due to the location. Overall, it’s a great place since it has outdoor seating and offers a relaxing atmosphere.

8.18.13.
Happy Birthday Kimi W.!!
As it is a very special birthday year for me & my girlfriends, we celebrated in the best way that any classy lady could… with tea time!
Tucked away in Manoa Valley, the Wai’oli Tea Room is where families, couples or girlfriend gatherings are a norm, especially on the weekends. This was my first time coming here outside of a party setting. It was also my first time having tea outside of an ocha cup, meaning dainty china.
The atmosphere was lovely. I adore the idea of dining in a «vintage» house with mismatched china… comfortable, cozy & it takes you to another place away from the outside world. Not to mention that outside every window is a lush view of some part of the valley greenery.
Selecting tea was a very interesting experience! WTR has a tea cart with all of the tea options (leaves); this is so you can smell them & determine which ones you like. For 6 people, we had a choice of 3 teas; we decided on Tropical Green (smells amazing!), Jasmine & a Chai something. All flavors were deliciously scrumptious – I just wish the hot water was hotter! After choosing teas, our waiter brought a three-​tiered tray of tea foods to our table. Foods included butterscotch brownies, lilikoi cream puffs, chocolate mousse cake, some granola thing, cucumber w/​that greek-​like sauce on rye, lilikoi bread w/​turkey, chipotle veggie wrap, guava bread w/​chicken, chocolate coconut (rock – it was so hard!) cookie (doesn’t it look like a scone?), & the Waioli fruit cake.
The staff was friendly, maybe in some cases too much… he also often forgot to come and check in on us. However, there was never any rush to get us out of the place, which was nice. There are also bathrooms here that are pretty clean – water pressure kind of sucks. Overall, I think we were still happy with our experience.
While this is a casual place, if you’re going with friends I would suggest dressing up a bit, kind of like you’re going to church or Sunday brunch. Apparently WTR will be closing in Novemeber, so come get your tea fix as much as possible while you can! I know I will try my best to be back again as many times as I can!
Unilocal 365 Challenge: #229/​365

Service was terrible. We wanted afternoon tea but they never told us we need to make it a day in advanced so we got stuck eating outside with the rain and wind blowing in every direction.
Whoever we had who answered the phone couldnt give us any directions to where to properly park, so we had to find street parking and walk all the way up. The cleanliness wasn’t very good. Even inside was disgusting!
Also they want they word that they bring you a dessert tray… it isn’t apart of your meal after all, you just pick one and pay for it along with your entrée.
Food: ⁷⁄₁₀
Service: ³⁄₁₀
Overall: ⁵⁄₁₀
Would I come back? NO!

This review is strictly for their high tea.
Before we went to HI we were looking online and found this place. If you want to do high tea, you have to make reservations and it’s about $ 20 per person. The lady on the phone warned me that once I made a reservation, we’d be charged for that many people even if someone didn’t show up. I didn’t like that.
When we walked in, the seater was on the phone and totally ignored us until she was done with what she was doing. She didn’t even make eye contact. Finally she acknowledged us and led us to the tea room.
The brunch area is outside on a patio and the high tea area is in a separate room with kind of olderish decorations and soft instrumental music playing. I did like all the tea pots and cups they had but one of the glasses had a lipstick stain on it. Also a plate had a little something crusted on the side. Also the instrumental music kept looping, not sure why they didn’t have a longer playlist?
We were left alone for a bit after we were seated but eventually a waiter pushed in a cart full of different teas and left us to choose which teas we wanted. This was nice because we could smell each one before making a choice. The tea set came shortly after and I loved how they did a Valentine’s Day/​Hawaiian twist to high tea.
–They had red heart cookies and brownies with valentine’s day m&ms.
–The chicken sandwich was on guava bread and the turkey sandwich was on liliko’i bread. The sweetness and fruitiness of the breads were very unique and paired well.
–The scone was a chocolate chip and cherry scone. They gave us mint butter and clotted cream. The mint butter made it taste just like mint chocolate chip, yum I’ve never had that anywhere else
Overall I thought the food and tea was decent, but the service and the cleanliness/​old decorations brought the rating down for me.

I’ve been to the Wai’oli Tea Room twice now. The first time I saw out on the patio for a lunch with colleagues. Today was the second time, and I took my mother for High/​Afternoon Tea. Two completely different experiences. If you want to skip to exactly why I only gave 2 stars, see the Food/​Pricing section.
Reservations:
Definitely make reservations. You wouldn’t think so by looks, but the place fills up with people come noon. Semi-​bad experience with this; I called to make a reservation and left my information. I called back about 20min later because I forgot to mention I wanted reservations for high/​afternoon tea; a different person answered the phone, said he couldn’t find the reservation I had made 20min earlier, and took all the same info again… so…you’re telling me that if I hadn’t called back because of something I forgot that I wouldn’t have had a reservation because someone lost it in 20min!!! GAAAH…*cough* Not good. NOTE: High/​Afternoon Tea is only available if you make a reservation a day in advance! (The only reason I even heard about it was because of Unilocal; thanks guys)
Seating:
Regular breakfast/​lunch seating is to the right of the hostess stand on the open air patio and in an open room at the end of the patio. It’s really quaint on a sunny day, especially with the Manoa valley breeze. The High Tea is in a room to the immediate left of the hostess stand in a closed room that’s been dressed up — full table cloths & runners, place settings, tea pots, etc. On either place side, don’t be surprised if it looks a bit unclean. The outdoor seating is outdoor… what do you expect; birds and bugs can fly around as they please. The high tea room doesn’t have that problem, but there tend to be more crumbs on the tables because of the types of foods that get served there. I’ve also noticed stains on the table cloths from previous patrons.
Service:
My first experience led me to agree with most of the other reviewers; «I hope you’re not in a rush…» because the service was disappointingly slow. Waiting to get water refilled was ridic and the food we ordered took a while to come out. The service during high tea was a little better, as the guy who served us seemed to come around a lot more. He even came at the perfect time to ask if I needed more water for my tea. Also, since you make reservations for high tea a day in advance and the «menu» of what goes on the 3-​tier stand is fixed, it doesn’t take that long for it to be served.
Food/​Pricing:
The food isn’t terrible, but it isn’t amazing either. I ordered the half sandwich and salad combo ($ 11.95) and guava bread pudding for dessert the first time, and got the 3-​tiered tea sandwiches/​desserts from High Tea the second time ($ 19.95 per person).
For the half sandwich, they offer turkey, corned beef, or vegetarian, so I ordered turkey. Both the sandwich and salad were really, really meh… mediocre at best and definitely not worth $ 11.95. I could have gotten a subway sandwich that would have been more gourmet than what I got that day. As for the bread pudding, I don’t normally enjoy bread pudding, but I shared this one with a colleague who likes the stuff (so she could eat it all in case I didn’t like it). It was surprisingly pretty good! I don’t remember how much it cost (I didn’t pay for lunch that day, and they don’t list desserts on their website).
For high tea, they have a pretty good list of teas. Each person on the table gets their own tea pot, so you can have as many different teas as there are people in your party. I tried the black currant, my mother ordered the chocolate mint. Chocolate mint smelt and tasted nostalgically of Christmas, and the black currant was a nice round sweet but not overly strong. As for the food: Tier 1) cherry chocolate chip scones/​cookies (delicious!), wai’oli tea cakes/​cookies (kind of like the MUCH tastier cousin of fruit cake), orange caramel buttercream, and Davonshire cream; Tier 2) cucumber and dill tea sandwich, curried chicken salad tea sandwich made with wai’oli bread, asian chicken salad tea sandwich made with guava bread, and slices of some sort of tortilla wrap with carrots, lettuce, and mustard sauce; Tier 3) pink «valentine’s cookies» with heart shaped fruit snack pressed into the center, guava chiffon cake, butterscotch brownies with M&Ms baked in, dark chocolate brownie bites topped w/​whipped cream, strawberry slice & drizzled w/​chocolate. Sandwiches=meh. Desserts=not very impressive but at least they were really tasty. I had a LivingSocial deal ($ 20 for $ 40 worth of food/​drink) and ended up only paying $ 1.76 + tip, but if I hadn’t had the coupon, I wouldn’t have done high tea… it’s NOT worth $ 20 a person.
I’m not going back unless someone else I paying… or I find another really good LivingSocial/​Groupon.

I recently went to the Waioli Tea Room for Sunday Brunch. My friend had the Wai’oli’s Famous Afternoon Tea available anytime with reservation for $ 19.95. I had the Frittata, an open-​faced omelet with zucchini, mushrooms, black olives, ham, mozzarella and cheddar cheese, salsa and a dollop of sour cream served with potatoes, or toast, or white rice or brown rice for $ 10.95. We also got some scones to go.
There is ample free parking. I recommend making a reservation and asking for seating «along the wall». Inside seating is very warm. See my pictures.

I had a good time here with my friends. However, there was nothing spectacular about the joint. We did sit next to the water fountain which was cool and peaceful and all, but that’s as good as it got for me.
The food didn’t wow me at all. I ordered the soy latte which was close to 5 bucks.(pricey) and the red velvet waffles, the special of the day. The waffles came loaded with cream that I did not care for. When I think of cream I think of fluffy decadence and was disappointed with the one here. It was very heavy and sticky. The strawberries were fresh but the waffles were just ‘meh’. I expected a lot more flavor from red velvet waffles.
My friend had the guava french toast and it seriously tasted like regular french toast that had been soaked in guava juice, which is how you make french toast I guess by soaking it, but still I wasn’t wowed. Our server was nice and withdrawn. We only saw her a few times…
The place is beautiful though. It reminds me of a very old colonial home. I dig the décor and all the plants outside, but I wasn’t impressed by the food or the drinks. I came here wanting to try the tea but there wasn’t even a tea menu. So I guess improvements could be made? Either way, not a bad place to check out and say that you’ve been to at least once.