Brunch is a revered weekend meal in and around San Francisco. Take it from us — brunch and breakfast articles are so popular that we’ve written no less than 5 roundups in this realm (best brunches, bottomless brunches, outdoor brunches, best breakfasts, and best pancakes). But today we bring you some not-so-glamorous news from the Bay Area brunch scene: some restaurants are implementing a $50 “vomit fee” to address the regrettable phenomenon of patrons overindulging in bottomless mimosas.
SFGATE wrote that Oakland’s Kitchen Story and San Francisco’s Home Plate have both instituted the $50 fee for brunch vomiters. Servers and staff at both restaurants have been faced with the undue burden of cleaning up after patrons who’ve had one too many. Dealing with a mimosa-fueled, pukey mess in the bathroom (or even in the dining area) is no small task, and the problem has become especially unbearable in the post-pandemic years.
Kitchen Story’s sign reads, “Dear all mimosa lovers, Please drink responsibly and know your limits. A $50 cleaning fees will automatically include in your tap when you throw up in the public areas. Thanks so much for your understanding.🙂” Both KTVU and SFGATE write that the sign has been an effective deterrent.
The “vomit fee” concept isn’t a new one — SF’s Blackwood already has a $50 cleaning fee written right into their brunch menu, and it’s not uncommon to see signs up in bars or clubs. But with the recent chatter around the topic, it’s perhaps not unreasonable to think that we might see more brunch restaurants following suit.
Many local restaurants offering bottomless brunch have other existing safeguards in place to avoid overserving. Sweet Maple has a 1-hour time limit, and The Sycamore has a dedicated “mimosa fairy” monitoring refills. Both methods are often effective in their own right, but something about this $50 penalty might just nudge the last of those brunch patrons into model-citizen behavior.
Wow, all this barf talk has got us in the mood for a mimosa…