Hillbilly Tea Closed

I'm surprised to hear this many negative or indifferent comments. I had the best pork chop of my life at HT, and a few other memorable meals besides. Never a disappointing experience. Well, there was the "green tea" cocktail that tasted like pond scum dredgings, but other than that, no problems!

I'm not super surprised, but only because Hillbilly Tea was always hit or miss. I had a different experience than some who viewed it as "Good but not great" -- in my visits, it tended to be either really good or really bad, nothing in between. I had a hard time recommending it to people because of that. I have a lot of friends whose taste I trust, though, who raved about it that I think the "really good" must have outnumbered the really bad 20 to 1, and I just got unlucky having two of my four visits be bad.

Are they selling that window bar?

[Robin Garr]

Are they selling that window bar?

Are you talking about the newer Hillbilly Tea Shack on Baxter?
http://www.hillbillyteashack.com/home.html

It stays, and reportedly will expand.

My brunch experience was quite the opposite of this. Both food and service seemed fine to me. I will say that I didn't particularly care for their dinner menu. After going there twice for dinner, I had vowed to only return for brunch.

Both visits were for Sunday brunch. The service was subpar and the food was below average and served with meager proportions. Location didn't help but it's ultimately about the food and customer service.

No. The gorgeous piece of wood that I have seen in pictures in the window of hillbilly tea!

[Robin Garr]

No. The gorgeous piece of wood that I have seen in pictures in the window of hillbilly tea!

Ah, got it, sorry about the misunderstanding. I agree that there's some cool stuff in there. I hope they can find a way to preserve it. I imagine a lot of good stuff can be shipped over to Baxter.

Karter may be using the 1st St. Location as a commissary for the other places. In one of the articles about the closing, he indicated he might reopen on 1st St. after all the construction for the bridges and the Convention Center are over. I know he told us that he intended to use 1st St. for tea packaging, prep and baking when he opened in Portland. Now he may be moving the decor to Portland and the Appalachian Sushi locations.

Hillbilly Tea has listed a "revival" event next Friday at 2:30 at their 1st and main location. I liked that place, so this is good news, whatever it means.