Open House to Celebrate becoming a Tea Room - Sunday May 5th 2013

Join Fancy That this Sunday, May 5th from 1pm - 4pm as we celebrate becoming a licensed and permitted Tea Room!  We will sample some Jasmine Earl Grey tea and cute mini desserts that we will serve as part of our Afternoon Tea.  If you have ever wanted a mini vanilla bean cupcake, now is your chance!  (grin)

Becoming a Tea Room has started almost a year ago.  We hired an architect, hired a floor installer, hired an electrician, hired a plumber, had inspections by the Town's Board of Health, Building Department, Electrical Inspector, Plumbing Inspector, had safety and Fire Marshall inspection (and installed additional emergency lighting and fire extinguishers), filed three different applications, went before the Selectmen (Town Fathers) and became a licensed Common Victualler.  Pffffhew!  Time to take a breath, and celebrate.

If you can stop by, please do and say hi.  We will be taking reservations for Afternoon Tea soon.  Our Gift Shoppe is open and has been open through the construction so there is a reason to stop by regardless of the Open House!  :)  Stay tuned here or like us on Facebook to keep "in the know" of reservations, special events, and the like.

Thanks for stopping by!

Becoming a Tea Room - Plumbing Passed!

You may be asking yourself - where has Fancy That been the last month?  Well, getting the Prep Room ready in our path to becoming a Tea Room.  You may recall, we are now licensed Common Victuallers.  Today we passed and have approved plumbing that is required to plate the food and wash, rinse and sanitize the vintage china.  Even if you don't like the looks of plumbing, you have to admit, it is a work of art - what with all the copper!  (PVC is not allowed in commercial applications in Massachsuetts.)

Thank you to our plumber, Norfolk County Plumbing and Heating.  We highly recommend their work, their attitude, and their willingness to help!  Thank you!

On to the last two inspections.  Now that we have the proper fire extinguishers throughout the Tea Room and all tagged, the proper lighting and emergency lighting, the proper signage in the Prep Room, and a little ramp by one of the thresholds (more on that in a later post), we are near ready for the final inspection by the Building Inspector/Commissioner, and then the final inspection by our Board of Health who will then issue our License to Operate as a Food Service Establishment.

Thank you for following us as we continue on the home stretch of Becoming a Tea Room!  :)  Thanks for stopping by! 

Fancy That's Process of Becoming a Tea House - Chronicling the Process

Got Tea?

Over the next six months or so we'll be chronicling the process of becoming a Tea House, or if you prefer, a Tea Room.  It just seems like the next logical step for us, and we're excited about it.  
 
Fancy That started almost ten years ago as a small, woman owned, family run vintage china rental company with a penchant for tea parties :) ...Almost ten years on, our inventory includes pristine mismatched silver plated flatware, beautiful dinner plates, vintage tea cups and saucers and so much more.

In May of 2011, we opened our retail gift shoppe.  So many of our clients and customers wanted to be able to purchase items for tea, we simply had to help out! (grin).  Our Shoppe offers imported British lemon curd, clotted cream, Double Devon cream British jams, French jams, vintage china cups and saucers and many more unique tea related items (like Scottish Clotted Cream Fudge!  YUMMY!).

All of the above has led to our newest and best idea yet...

We want to serve afternoon tea, and we're hoping to do so to coincide with our Tenth Year Anniversary Celebrations starting March 2013!

One little problem.  The cute bungalow we lease is not quite equipped for the whole process. 

So, we have a little bit of work to do, and we thought it would be fun to share the process with everyone here!  So stay tuned as we chronicle the process of Becoming a Tea House - Victorian-Gentility-Style!

Thanks for stopping by!