Brunch is the new bar scene for some

Raju Mudhar
Toronto Star

There comes a time sometime in your twenties when, instead of lining up for clubs, you start lining up in the morning for brunch spots. Oh sure, there are plenty of folks that tend to do both, but depending on what time you wake up (probably hungover) to make it out to breakfast, you best be ready to wait.

Aunties and Uncles, Boom Breakfast Co., Le Petit Dejeuner, Mildred Pierce and the Hot House are just some of the hot brunch spots downtown.

Some spots, like the first two, make breakfast and lunch their raison d'être, so it's understandable people are chomping at the bit. But what is surprising is peopole are willing to wait, although there are plenty of other brunch spots around.

I personally know the bane of waiting with a growling stomach on a weekend morning, but I know the Breakfast Pocket at Aunties and Uncles is definitely workth it. Thankfully, they've reopened their patio for the summer, which almost doubles capacity. They used to also have a clipboard for people to sign up to secure their spot in the queue, but it seems to have disappeared.

"Today, the wait was okay," says Kevin Lee, 28, at Le Petit Dejeuner. "It was only 20 minutes, so that wasn't that bad."

Of course, sometimes waiting just won't do.

"I looked, and they told my friend 15 minutes, but I figure we can just find another place and be eating by that time," says Steve Sapoulos, 26, standing with some friends outside Boom.

Many spots don't take reservations ("I'd like it if you could make them a half hour before, like right when you wake up," jokes Lee), because they say it's too much of a hassle.

"Well, we choose not to do it because of the high volume and people tend to cancel or change the number of the party, so it gets hard to keep track," says Tanya Brazil, assistant manager of Boom.

"But the lineup only looks intimidating. It's continuous, but it's fast moving."

The Hot House has gone the other way, and only takes reservations for their Sunday brunch.

"Without reservations, we don't how long it will be. Sometimes it would be an hour. And a lot of people still wait," says Andrew Laffy, the restaurant's owner.

"I mean, we feel badly for them and I know I wouldn't wait. Some Sundays, we turn away hundreds of people who call to try to get a reservation."

To handle the demand, the Hot House now opens earlier, at 9:30, and serves until 3 p.m.

The thing is, at the spots that don't take reservations, there's usually only a small window you need to wait.

By my judgment, it's somewhere around the 11:30-ish time frame, usually between the first seating of patrons and the second.

But brunch is very similar to bars: If you want to avoid the rush, your best bets are to go early or pretty late.