Southern charm
Mountain Oaks Tea Room exudes
Ooltewah’s Mountain Oaks Tea Room channels all the posh, old-fashioned style of Hollywood’s most famous Southern belle, Scarlett O’Hara.
Featuring 28 flavors of hot tea and what new Tea Room owner Sonya Guffey calls “afternoon eats,” the menu includes croissants, scones, soups, salads and sandwiches, such as the Southern smoked bologna sliders. One of its most popular plates, said Sonya, is its “courtyard sampler,” a hearty meal-for-one that comes with a scoop of chicken salad, a slice of quiche, congealed salad, fruit salad, pimiento cheese, croissant and crackers.
But it isn’t just the tea room’s scratch-made fare that supports the Southern ambiance; the décor does, too. The large space, which is attached to a popular wedding chapel of the same name, features four dining rooms, each with a different theme, color scheme and china patterns. There is “The Queen’s Room,” “The Gardenview,” “The French Market” and “Scarlett’s Room,” which features floral patterns, hunter green lace, satin-topped tables and a painting of — who else? — Scarlett O’Hara.
“We’re not just fluffy and froufrou,” Sonya pointed out.
In addition to hearty menu options such as the bologna sliders, there are decadent desserts including chocolate cake, cheesecake and peach cobbler. Plus, the space has a rich history, to boot.
The large, brick, white-columned building which houses the Tea Room is 104 years old. Over the past century, the site has functioned as the James County courthouse, a library, a health department and a voting precinct.
What more could a Southerner want than history, charm and scratch-made eats? To paraphrase Miss O’Hara herself, “As god as your witness, may you never be hungry again.”