A Cup of Comfort for the Harried Soul

In the distance, the 1st Movement of Bach’s Brandenberg Concerto #3 underscores the elegant ambiance of the experience that is about to unfold. There are no cellphones, no noisy conversations to compete with the occasional glance of silver spoons against the interior of Royal Daulton china cups. Seated nearby, an impeccably dressed older lady leaned in to her younger companion to quietly remark, “This is the way things used to be.”

Across the table from me, my husband added his own observation. “This is also the way it should be.”

The Queen of England herself would feel at home here. Like ourselves, she’d probably soon forget she was in Pasadena at all, much less that the nearest neighbors were two supermarkets and the requisite Starbucks-on-every-corner.

At Rose Tree Cottage—the city’s original and most enduring tea room—proprietors Mary and Edmund Fry have been serving up stylishness and scones for nearly three decades. L.A. Magazine, Victoria and U.S.A. Today have sung the shop’s praises; Restaurant Guild International enthusiastically awarded it five stars in its recognition of America’s most celebrated tea rooms.

Everything in the shop, our gracious host explains, is either English, Welsh, Irish or Scottish. The hand-crafted chairs are English yew and elmwood. The china from which we sip our tea is “Blossom Time,” a pattern which we are informed has been discontinued. It’s impossible not to be caught up in the charming cadence of Edmund’s London accent. “We’re in an age,” he says with unabashed candor, “when people are so used to drinking out of Styrofoam cups, using paper napkins and eating giant fistfuls of food with their hands that they eventually end up slopping all over their shoes.”

He goes on to reveal that the reason Rose Tree Cottage is always busy is because people have “quite frankly, had it with crowded shopping malls or calling stores and being told to hit an excess of different buttons”. In this sequestered mecca of gentility, the Frys and their staff not only answer the phone themselves but also open their own door, welcoming visitors upon arrival and thanking them upon their departure.

What’s particularly sad, he notes, is that “today’s young people are growing up in an era where even their own parents are lacking in manners and don’t really know what good service entails anymore”. Both Edmund and Mary had been in retail (Bullock’s Wilshire and Robinson’s) for many years prior to opening the tea room. “I’ve seen such a demise in service in what were once splendid shops,” he reflects, a breakdown he attributes to their steady acquisition by megastores. “You’re lucky these days if you can even find someone to assist you and, when you do, it’s almost as if they feel you’re interrupting something much more interesting.”

In the old days, he cites, there was nothing unusual about calling 7-10 different stores if a customer wanted a particular polka-dot skirt or a suit coat. “What have we come to?” he murmurs.

The wistful sigh no sooner escapes his lips when he takes note of a young mother and her two children about to leave after enjoying their afternoon tea together. He hastens to introduce them to us, confiding afterwards that it’s the children themselves who “routinely tell their mum they want to be here”. One can’t help but acknowledge his slender thread of optimism that these well mannered representatives of the next generation will embrace this grown-up experience enough to perpetuate it as adults.

I asked him to recall his memories of the first day Rose Tree Cottage opened. He prefaces his story with reference to a tea room he recalled from his tenure at Bullock’s Wilshire. “It was a lovely service,” he says, “but they had these noisy little metal flip-flop milk jugs and teapots that were invariably bent and never fit quite properly.” Tea, Edmund explains, has been in his family over 200 years. “If you’re going to serve it correctly,” he opines, “you’d never use such a thing.”

One day he announced to Mary they should open their own establishment and sell the very best items available, including Barbour outerwear, doll furniture, homemade jams, shortbread and their family scone recipe. The cluster of Cotswold cottages located on California was ideal and they chose one in front as the site of their new enterprise. The cottages date from the 1920’s and were not only once inhabited by members of the builder’s family but obscured from view by a 40-foot hedge.

We really should offer people a little something in the way of pleasant escape while they’re here’,” he recalls telling Mary. The idea of afternoon tea was born. “Within three days of opening,” he went on, “we had people screaming, ‘I was here first!’ ‘No you weren’t!’ ‘Yes I was!’ and it all got quite out of hand. Mind you, we only had five tables at the time.” The solution, of course, was to start taking reservations. “Within two or three months, however, we realized that one cottage wasn’t enough to accommodate the demand.” This subsequently led to their acquiring a second cottage and then a third—the one they currently occupy.

Fifteen years into the business, however, Edmund was diagnosed with esophageal and stomach cancer. “I was given six months to live.” He soberly points out that less than one percent of those with this form of the disease survive. He pauses a moment. “When you’re given that short a time, you immediately rehash your life and try to decide how best the remaining time should be spent.” Their decision was to close the front two cottages. “Fortunately, due to the power of prayer and a skilled surgeon who believes in it as well, I’m here to tell the story.”

In spite of working seven days a week, Edmund points out that it’s hardly something he’d label a “job”. “For one thing,” he says, “when you’re set up in a place that used to be someone’s home, it’s a different feeling than going off to an office no one lives in.” Doing something both of them love makes a big difference, too. “Our customers,” he adds, “have become our friends and our friendships with them literally span the globe.” Over the years, they’ve seen all manner of special occasions unfold—betrothals, birthdays, anniversaries. Their fan base is tremendously loyal—“We have one lady who drives once or twice a month from San Jose just to come and take tea. Six hours here and six hours back—all in the same day!”

We’ve also seen people come here in the face of tragic news—loss, despair, the revelation of incurable illness.” He thoughtfully contemplates his cup before continuing. “It’s almost as if they’re on a mission of some sort, a quest to find a few moments of serenity.” He relates the story of a customer who bumped into her therapist and was asked if she was seeing another doctor because she hadn’t been attending sessions. “’No,’ she replied, ‘I’ve just been going for afternoon tea and it’s a lot cheaper’.”

Not everyone, of course, is initially savvy on what a tea room is all about. “For instance,” he says, “we had three teachers come once who wanted to stand in the doorway and watch what everyone else was doing because they’d never been to tea before.” The corner of his mouth twitches with mirth. “I’m not entirely sure what they thought was so terribly difficult about it,” he tells us. “It’s just tea. It’s picking up a cup, taking a sip and setting it down where you found it.”

In another instance, a well dressed patron from overseas called him over and requested a fork. Edmund, the epitome of decorum, patiently explained to her that the sandwiches were finger food and, as such, could be picked up and eaten with the fingers. “’Even the Queen,’ I told her, ‘eats these the same way’.” Ten minutes later he returned to see the woman using the sugar tongs to pick the sandwiches off the tray and plop them onto her plate. A subsequent customer, perplexed that no fork had been provided, proceeded to use her tea spoon and her scone knife to “saw her sandwich in half as if it were a slab of roast beef.”

A red velvet rope separates the shop from the inner sanctum of the tea room. Discreet notes placed beneath the glass table tops advise that cellphones and pagers are to be turned off in respect to fellow patrons. Photographs may only be taken with the Frys’ permission, owing to a high-profile clientele that includes Julie Andrews, John Travolta, Jane Kaczmarek, and members of the Royal Family. For safety reasons, babies are not allowed. There’s also a strict dress code observed at Rose Tree Cottage, one which particularly impacts gentlemen who try to get in wearing a hat or cap. “Where I come from,” he relates, “a man would never consider entering a house and not removing whatever’s on his head. Why this can’t be impressed upon people any more, I really don’t know.”

He shares a story in which he offered to take a male patron’s hat before admitting him. “’No thanks,’ he said to me. I then offered to hold it on the side and return it afterwards. ‘That’s okay,’ he said, ‘I’ll just leave it on’. Well,” Edmund continues, “I was finally able to wrest it away from him—diplomatically, of course—and allowed him to be seated.” After about three minutes, the man’s wife approached and asked Edmund if he had told her husband to remove his headwear. When Edmund confirmed that this was indeed so, her next question caught him by surprise. “’Do you have another hat he could wear then?’ she asked, presumably thinking I hadn’t liked the one he wore in and was going to troll through my entire inventory to find him a replacement while they were having tea!”

When they finally finished and left, the entire room burst into cheers of applause.

He laughs. “The most important thing to us, of course, is whether everyone has a good time. We never want them to feel silly or embarrassed.” He goes on to say that even those who are initially awkward not only return but also tell their friends what fun it is. “This is different for a lot of people,” he remarks. “Once they try it, we find that they enjoy themselves and that it’s the sort of old-fashioned way of doing things that makes them feel as if they’ve just done something extraordinary.”

If people do us the honor of coming to our little establishment—whether it’s from around the world or around the corner—they deserve to be treated the same as any luminary, dignitary or member of royalty. In fact, if they don’t go away feeling as if they’ve been treated like the Queen, we haven’t done our job properly.”

So what do the tea leaves foretell for the future?

Edmund reflects a moment on his own bout with illness and on the current battle he shares with Mary who is recovering from breast cancer surgery. “One would only hope that a treasure such as this will endure long after Mary and I are too decrepit to run it ourselves.” He closes by sharing the etymology of the “Rose Tree’ name. “In Medieval times, every village had a rose tree cottage that was like the village hospital. It was the place you went to get well.” He winks at me. “Why do people go for afternoon tea, do you suppose? It’s not lunch. It’s not dinner. It’s not where you’ll wolf down a club sandwich. It’s a place to feel tranquil and unrushed and…optimistic.”

In a troubled world such as this, it’s the best dose of comfort one can find.

Postscript: In 2007, the Cotswold cottages - including Rose Tree - will be converted to low income housing in order to satisfy the obligations of a major developer's plan to add upscale condominiums to the Pasadena landscape.