Just down the street from
Sue & Esther's American Tea Room in Frankenmuth is
Bronner's Christmas Wonderland.
Talk about contrasts.
Where Sue & Esther's, opened just over three months ago, is tranquil, quaint and focused on tea, fresh food and a close-knit experience shared over leaves from locales around the world, Bronner's, a nearly 65-year-old institution, is a bombastic seven acres of what may be the world's largest collection of Christmas kitsch.
Put another way: If Sue & Esther's were a snow globe, its backdrop could be Peace On Earth, and Bronner's would be Disneyworld.
It's also the reason behind owner Lisa Murlick's decision to open her tea room in a nondescript strip about a mile from impossible-to-miss Bronner's rather than on the 'Muth's main drag. The tea room, which is on 1022 Weiss, is one street over from bustling Main Street with its offerings of fried chicken, sausage and fudge, but it might as well be a world apart.
Murlick, a tea-loving entrepreneur who grew up in Frankenmuth, chose to go off the beaten path so that her business was about locals first.
"We wanted to start slow and make a name with the locals," she says. Starting slow was also a way to perfect the operation, she says. And the plans have come to a boil. There are lunch rushes, there are regulars and a take-out crowd. One group of regulars are teenagers on bikes who stop by for bubble teas to go, and others are local businesswomen who first came for the bubble tea, but came back for that and more.
"We've got a really good local following," she says. That includes bridal showers, baby showers and birthday parties.
Next are plans for more marketing to take the business in the next direction.
"We want it to be more of a destination," Murlick says. "I think what we have is different. So much that's out there, the restaurants, is the same."
The difference with Sue & Esther's starts with the calming music, subdued, peaceful paint colors that welcome guests through the front door, and continues with beautifully done, fresh soups, sandwiches, (think pretty little tea finger sandwiches) colorful salads, creative quiches and of course, tea and scones and petite sweets. It's eating in a leisurely way, having some soup, drinking some tea, having some salad, drinking some tea, having a sandwich, drinking some tea, having another sandwich (they're dainty), drinking some tea, having a scone, drinking some tea. You get the picture.
It's not only about relaxation, eating and drinking but also education.
The
tea menu--with 53 varieties from regions around the world and designations of fair trade, regal and organic--might be intimidating, but being a tea novice can add to the fun and potential of learning something new.
The tea education starts with a sashay to the tea snifters at the front of the restaurant, near the gift shop, which has teas and teapots, including British models, and tea-related items for sale.
On two sets of shelves are glass jars of teas, divided by their region or origin and small enough to hold in one hand. It's fun and fascinating, just to read the names and see the colors through the jars and even more fun to start the sniffing, which is free, and helps guests figure out which tea or teas to drink.
"Some people don't know where to start," Murlick says. "Usually if you like the way it smells, you'll like the way it tastes."
She promises a taste, especially for those of us used to Lipton or its likes, "will make anyone love our tea."
Besides the snifters, another standout part of Sue & Esther's--named, by the way, after her late grandmother, Esther, and her mother and late-mother-in-law, both Sues--are the community hats hanging on the walls and hat racks about the tea room.
Customers can wear the hats while sipping. There are women's, men's and children's; plain and also with adornments like flowers and feathers.
"There are people who like to change hats while they're here," Murlick says.
She calls it an American tea room to set it apart from the English or Victorian tea rooms with their "parlors and fussy doilies, ribbons and bows."
As the website says: "The American tea room comes more from a time when folks were just becoming more mobile with horse and buggy and would take longer trips to visit family and friends. Along the way, families would open up their homes and hearts, giving visitors hot tea or coffee and scones to sustain them until they reached either the next home or their destination."
The two dining rooms are an eclectic mix of tables, chairs, tablecloths, china and silverware, all of it pretty and inviting and so civil.
At the center of each table are silver teapot warmers. Murlick says the way to get the full experience, and basically try the most teas, is to buy the pot that can be filled as many times as you like for $3.50.
"People have a lot of fun, trying the different teas," she says.
She was inspired to open her own tea room after a visit to see her sister in Georgia a few years ago. They had tea at
Tea Leaves & Thyme, a destination tearoom in Woodstock, Ga.
"I just loved the whole experience of the tea house," she says. "There's something about sharing a pot of tea. Everything sort of slows down."
So take this advice: Take a stroll down Main, partake in what makes Frankenmuth so Frankenmuth, pick up some Christmas essentials at Bronner's and wrap it up with a calming spot o' tea.
Kim North Shine is a Detroit-area freelance writer and tea novice who fell in love with vanilla berry truffle tea, which she used to wash down (very politely) a salad with gorgeously red tomatoes and a tasty raspberry vinaigrette, a crisp cucumber tea sandwich with a delicate mint butter, a tomato bisque and a curried egg salad with cracked black pepper on whole wheat. She'll be going back for a mother-daughter day out with her 10-year-old.
Kim North Shine is a freelance writer based in Michigan.
Photos by Avram Golden.