Visalia Tea Garden

My family has fond memories of the old tea garden; my dad ate there as a kid, his dad ate there, and we used to go there all the time in the 80's and 90's when we lived there. It opened in 1920 and was known for having great cantonese food. I hadn't been there in several years when my family decided to take a trip back to Visalia. We were looking forward to stopping into the Tea Garden, afterall, how many Chinese restaurants have been open for 80 years? The place was dead when we went on a Thursday night, there was only one other table with people dining. The waitress acted bored out of her mind and we had to summon her from her chair where she sat not paying us much attention. The food has gone downhill too; it was the food that was always the draw here, not much atmosphere. So mediocre was the chow mein, fried rice, egg roll, sweet and sour pork, fried chicken and chicken with almonds that the 11 dollars per plate price seemed to be the most riduculous thing on earth. Management must have changed here, it really used to be a great chinese place where the servers cared and the food was awesome.