Alice's Tea Cup

Sisters Haley and Lauren Fox opened Alice's Tea Cup on West 73rd Street in 2001, building an Alice in Wonderland-themed tea room around a menu of hundreds of tea varieties alongside scones and tea sandwiches. The whimsical framing — the shop's own marketing calls it "New York City's most whimsical tea house" — extends down to small touches like fairy dust on the scones, rather than being a costume dropped over a standard tea menu.

The original 73rd Street location, referred to on the site as "Chapter I," still anchors the business, which now also handles private events, catering, and online ordering alongside its dine-in tea service.

A quarter-century in, Alice's Tea Cup remains a sisters-run Upper West Side fixture built on the specific, sustained bit of Wonderland theming that set it apart from New York's more conventional tea rooms when it opened.