Mother’s Day is coming, but I refuse to wait an hour in line for the privelege of paying $25 a plate for pancakes, green strawberries, dry roast beef and vinegary champagne. When did this infernal brunch custom start? Dining out should be a pleasant, relaxing pastime, and the great American brunch is about as far from that idea as one can get.
I can only suppose that the “all you can eat” concept has become some people’s idea of a great restaurant experience. Sorry, it doesn’t do it for me. It makes me think of Homer Simpson when the local fish ‘n’ chips had “all you can eat shrimp” night, and they had to bounce him from the place before he ate all the profits. I’m taking my mom to a real restaurant, for dinner, and incidentally, I’m not going to do it right on Mother’s Day. 100,000,000 people CAN be wrong.
I’m with pugluvr on the whole brunch thing; unfortunately, my whole family are a bunch of sheep, and happily baa their way to a crowded restaurant every Mother’s Day, and if I don’t wanna be a troublemaker, I baa along with them. Sheesh. Being even marginally sociable is a lot of work, knomesane?
Speaking as a former waiter (2 1/2 years at a couple of places in Houston), I can testify that Mother’s Day is the absolute worst day of the year to go to a restaurant. It was excruciatingly awful to work Mother’s Day, especially during brunch. The problems were manifold, but most of it boiled down to the simple fact that a lot of people who never went out to any restaurant nicer than Hardee’s on any other day of the year suddenly started clogging the (admittedly middling-nice) restaurant I worked in, as well as all the other “sit-down” places in the city. Thus, the place was absolutely jammed with people who:
Didn’t have much idea how a real restaurant operates; and
Were absolutely hell-bent on everything going completely swimmingly when they took their dear old Moms out on “her day” (blech).
#2 is, of course, impossible, especially in your typical restaurant when it’s overcrowded and understaffed (and just about any restaurant would be understaffed on Mother’s Day; there just aren’t enough waiters to go around). So what you ended up with was a bunch of pissed-off customers, pissed-off waiters, pissed-off bartenders (a tray with a dozen Bellinis in 10" champagne flutes is unbelievably easy to spill), pissed-off managers, crying children…
It was a nightmare. And on top of it all, you had to make a special effort to smile and be nice, because after all, it’s “her day!” (blech again)
I always secretly suspected that the mothers who were being taken out to these things would be much happier with a spa treatment and a day without having to deal with the kids.
Now, don’t misunderstand me. I love my mom to death, and I don’t have a problem with Mother’s Day per se, but I won’t go to a restaurant on that day. It’s just torture.
I’m all with you, Lindy. Bbut . . . after pulling a double on Death Day I always walked out of the store with more money in my pockets than the average week the rest of the year.
People like to spend money on their moms–and many people (who wouldn’t do so ordinarily) tip very well.
So, a slight caveat–if you do decide to follow the herd this Sunday, 15% ain’t gonna cut it.
Somebody once suckered me into a Mother’s Day champagne brunch at the local Holiday Inn, and it was a scarifying experience. I am not a champagne brunch person, to begin with. All those women, teetering in high heels, dressed to the nines, to eat lobster salad and drink champagne–at 11:00 in the morning? On a Sunday morning? Down at the Holiday Inn? I’m sorry, I don’t get it.
Probably the worst part of it was the quilt show out in the lobby.
There’s a restaurant by us that has the BEST brunch: all great breakfast foods-omelets, eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, Belgian waffles-including butter, syrup, strawberries and sauce and whipped cream, rolls, juice, coffee, tea, etc etc.
It’s the gesture that counts, after all. Another option is to make a big picnic lunch and go to a park somewhere, weather permitting. Who says you have to do the restaurant thing?
Or, even better, send Mom off on the spa thing and clean the house while she’s out. Get creative, people!
As for me, given that I’m about 3000 miles away from my own dear mother, a card, gift and phone call will have to suffice. Unless I think of something else.
