Brunch Thoughts

Yesterday's first-ever brunch was a success.  It certainly seemed people were happy and sated. 

That said, it's not something we plan on offering every Sunday.  We had several people ask us if we were going to do a regular brunch, but not featuring Mexican. 

That's not going to happen.  There's already CCs and Pamelas for the eggs and pancake crowd, plus a very good upscale brunch at Bistro 19.

If we're going to offer brunch in the future, it will have to be on our terms.  And that means brunch menus will be personal, fun, different and meaningful to us.  Because if it's just going through the motions to make a couple more bucks, that's going to show up on your plate and in the service.

Our thoughts on doing brunch are:
1) The food has to tie to the coffee.  Not necessarily in a formal "coffee pairing menu" sense, but it should connect to origin.  If we're going to do these, our inclination is to feature dishes from different coffee growing countries, regionally-specific where possible.
2) What we serve will be representative of what's actually consumed by workers' families at origin to the best of our ability.  Mostly stews and soups and prepared fillings that can spooned into tortillas or onto injera or over rice. (Speaking of which, if you've got a rice cooker you're not using...)
3) Exception to #1: We reserve the opportunity to showcase some family traditions from Mel and Rich or any of our staff (as none of us grew up in a coffee-producing country and you never know when the urge to cook Serbian will happen). 
4) It has to be a menu we can pull off given our tiny kitchen, which makes volume cooking a challenge.  Then again, most of the best recipes from origin countries are a combination of simple ingredients and lots of labor... kinda like yesterday's menu. 
5) The food has to work with our serving setup, comprising a single chafing dish and a couple of crock pots.  If a dish is going to be compromised by our inability to serve it properly, we won't do it.  And we're not getting a mircowave. Ever.
6) We need a dedicated busser/dishwasher for whenever we do this.  It got a bit ridiculous yesterday and it's not something we want our baristas to be handling.
7) If we do plan on more of these, promotion will be via email.  So read those newsletters when you receive them ;-) 

So, we're not saying we won't do brunch more than once a year.  But if we do, you'll have a better idea of what to expect.

Comments

[belle]

we're sad we missed it. Maybe you can cook us up a little something something. or not. maybe just some coffee will do

[Dave Dish]

Just wanted to thank you all again for the wonderful brunch on Sunday. I thought it was a "real" Mexican treat, particularly for the price tag. Even if it's only a yearly tradition, then it's absence for the other 364 will just make my belly grow fonder!
P.S. I will volunteer to wash dishes next time - and you can hold me to that!

[rich]

Dave,
Thank you for your comments. Glad you enjoyed the brunch. We enjoyed doing it. Well, at least those of us who weren't doing all the dishes ;-)