Your Cup of Tea?

There’s a very simple fact of everyday life realized by women worldwide: Sometimes you just need a cup of tea. Strong or mild, fruity or herbal according to your personal taste, it makes you sit down and relax.

If you’re hungry, you can add a scone. If the budget’s tight, there’s always an egg salad sandwich.

Then there are social occasions and events that require primping by the celebrants and an extended table offering. These are the meals you eat slowly, using fancy china if you have it. Then it becomes not “tea” but “a tea.”

Haddonfield’s Kings Highway has been the destination for ladies’ teas for more than a decade. For about a year and a half, The Room has brought in women out for a day of primping and shopping. Occasionally a man is corralled into joining his special woman for afternoon tea, but it’s rare.

And often, says Ruslana Snyder, the relatively new owner of the shop, he’ll call the waitress aside and ask if there’s any coffee in the house. Snyder will comply with the coffee request, but serves it in a teapot. Iced tea is always available and in the summer, she’ll add homemade lemonade to the drinks side of the menu.

She draws her own line at serving soda.

Sitting at a small table topped with a tablecloth imprinted with a variety of tea cups, with one background wall of a hand-painted garden scene and another of a window with a real lace valence insert, Snyder talked about her dream to own a tea shop.

She also explained the derivation of her unusual name. Born in Vienna. Austria, Snyder was named in honor of her mother’s favorite opera, Ruslan.

“Since my daughter was 2, I wanted to do this,” she said. For years she collected tea pots and tea cups and saucers. “This shop brought together both of my passions,” said Snyder.

The shop stores about 50 teapots and hundreds of cups on bright white open shelving. Snyder’s favorite collected items remain in her home in Audubon.

The tea room, with a gift shop fronting the street, seats up to 34 people and reservations are strongly suggested on weekends or holidays. Snyder will set up the room for private parties like bridal or baby showers and birthday parties. Recently she’s been called on to use the space for business meetings and for women’s organizations.

The menu includes homemade soup, scones and sandwiches. On hand to assist with every part of the business is Dolores Famiglietti, who works there three or four days a week, assembling tea sandwiches and “doing whatever needs to be done.”

Snyder said she and Famiglietti, who worked for the previous shop owner Dana Feigenbutz, “are like family to each other.” For about 10 years, Feigenbutz owned both the Picket Fence and , a children’s clothing store she still owns on Tanner Street. Snyder was a frequent customer at the tea shop and when Feigenbutz started to think about selling it, the match seemed perfect.

The high tea at the shop includes five tea sandwiches, a mini quiche, three mini desserts, a scone made and baked in the shop, and a pot of tea of the guest’s choice. It costs $17.95, plus tax and tip, and is about $5 cheaper than teas in other South Jersey tea rooms.

The sandwich selection for the tea includes tuna salad, egg salad, ham salad with apricots, chicken salad and marinated cucumbers with cream cheese on pumpernickel bread.

Snyder said her menu leans toward vegetarians and favorites include several varieties of pasta salad and wraps. “We like to keep the menu fresh so people come back to try something else. We have a lot of repeat customers,” said Snyder. She’ll soon be adding a roast beef and cheddar cheese sandwich.

“I’m taking baby steps to make this place my own,” she said, adding that generous help and guidance from Feigenbutz made the ownership transition an easy one. “Not a lot of people would do that when they sell a business,” she said.

Catering is another side of the business and new customers often have been guests at an event who liked what they saw and ate, but might want to add some individual items. “It’s about personalized service,” she said.

In the shop area, Snyder sells $7.95 bags of tea, loose and in bags, from the Eastern Shore Tea Company along with a scone mix she says almost meets her home-made standards.

She also sells pies that are made in Vermont by Grandma Miller’s bake shop. Available baked or unbaked, Snyder drives to the bakery to pick up as many as 100 pies per trip. “Now people are pre-ordering them,” she said.

Last week, four women from Holy Family church in Washington Township stopped in for an early lunch. “It’s delightful here,” said Anne Krauss, who wanted to show off the tea room to friends and visit Haddonfield’s shopping area on a bright sunny day. “We don’t have anything like this in Washington Township.”