If you want Brunch in D.C., beware of this "Restaurant"

Hey y’all,

The city formerly known as chocolate gives me heartburn on the best of days, but I have never been kicked out of a restaurant (without good cause) until this past weekend. This is what I call “Brunchers Lament!”

So . . . some of my closest friends and I decided to have a little retreat this weekend to catch up and show each other some love. It is exceedingly rare that we are all on the same continent, much less within driving distance of each other. So those of us who do not live in D.C. traveled here for the weekend to eat, drink . . . and drink again!

Now, in D.C., any reasonable weekend itinerary would include a cute brunch with bottomless mimosas AT LEAST one good time. D.C. has arguably some of the best albeit costly brunch scenes in America. So with all of this in mind, my good Judy made reservations at a “trendy” restaurant called Homestead D.C. (spoiler alert - it was awful - DO NOT GO TO THIS RESTAURANT!).

The reservation was for 11am. Half of our group made it to the reservation on time and were not only seated, but served drinks and appetizers while I schlepped across the virginia state line to make it there 20 minutes late.

I have to say here that I fully admit not only the fact that I was late, but my tardiness was past the socially acceptable grace period. Nevertheless, the restaurant chose to seat the half of our party that showed up on time and said nothing disparaging about my tardiness once I arrived.

The menu was cute - we ordered bottomless mimosas quickly and soon thereafter ordered our meals. My friends and I proceeded to give you diverse, queer “sex and the city” realness for about an hour. I had not even finished my meal when our lovely, transgender waitress asked us how long we needed to finish.

Umm . . . excuse me?

The waitress said that the table had been booked for another party, and that it was because half of the party was late that it had been rebooked.

. . . huh?!

So my friend asks how long we have to complete our meals . . . and our bottomless drinks. 30 minutes? The waitress told us that it was closer to five minutes.

Ma’am . . . no ma’am.

Here’s the deal. Some restaurants have timed reservations. Some restaurants have timed bottomless drinks. In a city as sophisticated as D.C., the restaurants know that they have to publish these rules or else suffer the ire of a million yuppie millenials. It is for this very reason that most restaurants do not seat a party until everyone is present. And if there is a time limit on bottomless drinks, it is very clearly published.

Now, you, the reader, might be asking yourself:

“Self, L. can be a little ratchet in public sometimes. Did they kick L. out because of his hood richness?”

And it is at this juncture that I can say with confidence that we were all respectfully having a good time.

They couldn’t have kicked us out because of the overwhelming gay factor - our waitress was transgender.

My friends and I were provided a fake news excuse for why they were committing a cardinal “no no” against us, and tried to appease us by bringing these funky ass mimosa pitchers over to our table as they scooted us out of the door.

WE HAD TO LEAVE AND I STILL HAD FOOD ON MY PLATE.

So what is the moral of this story.

Don’t eat at Homestead D.C. They are the worst. spend your hard earned pre-recession dollars somewhere else. There are endless brunches in D.C. who deserve your business. This is not one of them.

Just in case you needed more information - or wanted to check the extent to which the restaurant published any “time/seating” policies, check it out for yourself online. The googles found zero policies on their funky ass website.

I’ll even give you, my dear reader, a D.C. pro-tip. The best brunch I’ve had so far was at a chain restaurant called Matchbox. Go get your life and thank me later.

LKB