After 24 years at the helm of Adrienne's Tea Garden, Fay Hextall is reluctantly letting go.

The personable owner of the popular Cordova Bay restaurant and meeting place said turning 70 last month was the bittersweet signal to turn the page.

"I love the place, the people who come here and the staff, so it's very hard . but it is the right time," said Hextall.

This week, she turns the operation at Mattick's Farm over to Sabine Schwaiger, a German-born natural health consultant whose family has run small inns and restaurants in Bavaria.

Hextall will stick around for about a month in the transition.

Schwaiger said she isn't planning major changes to Adrienne's, which has attracted generations of diners and daily coffee and tea crowds.

The 100-seat restaurant is famous for its eggs benedict, homemade soups and crepes and full-service deli - not to mention high teas and the 16-flavour Gramma Fay's Ice Cream Parlour.

The 37 staff, many of them students, are being retained, including supervisor Jocelyn Harrison, who has been working at Adrienne's since before Hextall took over.

"It's a wonderful business with great energy and I want to keep it that way," said Schwaiger, 44, who moved to Victoria in 2009 from Salmon Arm.

"Culinary arts are very important to my family and when I first came to Victoria and saw [Adrienne's], I knew this was meant to be."

Adrienne's Tea Garden was one of the original businesses at Mattick's Farm, which has been developed over the years by the Jawl family into a bustling retail complex and tourist attraction with 15 shops, including a fresh produce market and a garden centre, and a nearby championship golf course.

The ivy-covered building was once an open-air produce stand and Bill Mattick ran a small tea room and ice cream parlour before it was expanded and renamed Adrienne's by Alan and Adrienne Mattson in 1984.

For Hextall, retirement will mean more time to travel and visit her three children and seven grandchildren, and enjoy a slower pace of life.

She was both a hockey wife and mother to professional players.

Husband Bryan Hextall Jr. played more than 500 games in the NHL, mostly with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and had a colourful minor pro career, including an AHL championship in 1968 with the Rochester Americans and a WHL championship in 1969 with the Vancouver Canucks.

The couple have been married 50 years.

Their son, Ron Hextall, was an all-star goalie with the Philadelphia Flyers for 11 seasons, winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in 1987 despite losing to the Edmonton Oilers. He is currently assistant general manager with the NHL's Los Angeles Kings, and general manager of the Kings farm team, the Manchester Monarchs.

The couple's two other children also reside off the Island. Tracy is a teacher in Port Moody and Rod is based in Michigan as a manufacturer's sales rep in the auto industry.

"I think my grandkids are more anxious about me leaving than I am," laughed Fay. "But I'm sure I'll get used to not being around.

"It always felt like more than just a business to me. Leaving the staff is huge for me. And all the regulars . this was a real meeting place for people . I will miss them all," she said. "I really wanted someone to build on what we have and provide that TLC and I think Sabine will do that. She is about the same age I was when I got this place."

The Hextalls were both born in Winnipeg, but Fay was raised in Brandon. After moving around the continent with their children as Bryan continued his hockey career, the couple resettled in Manitoba, where Fay worked as a truant officer and in a group home for troubled boys.

The Hextalls moved to Victoria in the mid-1980s, attracted by the milder weather, and bought Adrienne's from the Mattsons.

Adrienne's Tea Garden is at 5325 Cordova Bay Rd. Call 250-658-1535.