Restaurants are charging ‘vomit fee’ for guests who drink too many mimosas
Brunch: a hate-it-or-love-it weekend activity where friends gather to eat a combination of breakfast and lunch foods, gab about their lives and, sometimes, drink mimosas. Maybe a couple mimosas. Maybe more. And now, some California restaurants are trying to prevent that boozy overindulgence.
SFGate first reported on a fee instituted at some Bay Area brunch spots that aims to curb patrons, often folks in their 20s, imbibing too much on bottomless mimosas during brunch.
Three popular brunch spots in the area have been dealing with folks drinking too much and ultimately getting sick — sometimes right at their table in the dining room.
Kitchen Story, a restaurant that serves Asian-inspired breakfast and brunch in Oakland, California, has a sign in its bathroom directed towards anyone planning on chugging rather than sipping their mimosas:
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 our public areas. Thank you so much for understanding ??
The restaurant posted the sign almost two years ago when its general manager saw similar signs in bars in the area.
“This was still during the pandemic and it became a very sensitive issue for customers and staff having to clean up,” Kitchen Story owner Steven Choi told SFGate. “But this is not unique. It’s there to make the customers stop and think about other people.”
Kitchen Story co-owner Chaiporn Kitsadaviseksak also said he can’t recall having to actually charge the fee since the signs were posted, but before introducing the fee, folks tossing their cookies in the restaurant happened “a lot.” Additionally, the restaurant’s current bottomless mimosa policy limits cocktail time to a single hour.
Another spot San Francisco eatery, Home Plate, gives the same warning to its brunch customers. Starting in late 2021, owner Teerut Boon instituted a similar policy to that of Kitchen Story. But Home Plate’s signs, which used to be posted around the shop, were eventually taken down due to customer complaints.
Still, the warning, “Please Drink Responsibly. $50 cleaning fee per person for any incident incur as a result of intoxication,” remains on its menu, right under the $22 price tag for bottomless mimosas, printed in red. Boon said it helped.
“We can’t continue to serve them mimosas if they become intoxicated,” Boon told SFGate.
While Home Plate and Kitchen Story both provide carafes of bottomless mimosas to tables so that patrons can pour their own drinks, one area restaurant forgoes that entirely to prevent customers from getting sick. Gastropub The Sycamore leaves the job of pouring drinks to an employee, who during brunch service has a fantastic job title.
“We have a staff member who is a mimosa fairy,” Liz Ryan, co-owner of The Sycamore, told SFGate, adding that there’s a mimosa station with a sign warning patrons that it’s for staff use only. “They bring a pitcher around that they use to refill glasses.”
About every 15 minutes, the restaurant’s “mimosa fairy” offers to top off glasses of bubbly, while also noting who may be going overboard, keeping this in mind for a potential cutoff.
This way of doing things is due in part to Responsible Beverage Service training from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, which became mandatory for all California restaurant employees who handle and serve alcohol in July 2022.
The training teaches employees, among other things, alcohol’s effect on the body and how to responsibly serve alcohol to patrons.
“Our staff is trained to make sure our customers don’t overdo it,” Ryan said. “Nobody wants to see people throwing up. That sort of spoils the party vibe that we’re trying to create.”
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
