Neman: Why chefs hate brunch and some of their customers.

Sigmund Freud would have had a field day with social media. When people get on social media these days, they sometimes reveal far more about themselves than they may think they do. I recently watched a video from Foodbeast showing a group of chefs talking about why chefs hate to make brunch.

By my count, the video revealed four important things: Chefs hate to make brunch. Chefs hate their customers. Chefs are jerks.



The people who made the video have no concept of copyright laws. Obviously, not every chef is a jerk. Many probably don’t even hate their customers, most of the time, though it’s entirely possible that they all do hate to make brunch.

The part about copyright laws — the Foodbeast people threw a dozen clips from movies and TV shows into the video without credited permission from the studios that made them — is not pertinent to our discussion today. But it is intriguing to ponder how long they can continue before they are sued into oblivion. Four chefs participate in the conversation about brunch; all are wearing black, and all look as if they would greatly benefit from a shower.

They are seated at a restaurant, and they are actually being served brunch while they talk about why they hate serving brunch. Chefs are jerks. Or at least these chefs.

One reason they cite for hating brunch is the drunkenness of some of the customers (the chefs are drinking as they shoot the video, but they are not intoxicated). Bottomless mimosas are, understandably, the bane of brunch restaurants. Servers spend so much time pouring drinks that they do not have enough time to take orders or do anything else, one chef says.

Some brunchers come into the restaurant still drunk from the night before, one of the chefs says, and as they continue to drink they become increasingly rowdy and cause problems. One frequent problem, he says, is vomit in the bathroom. Someone has to clean that up.

And then there’s the problem of the most popular brunch food, eggs. Anyone can make eggs; they can make them the exact way that they like and it only takes a few minutes. But a restaurant at brunch has a dozen orders ahead of you, and that takes time.

And when everything is flowing in the kitchen, the last thing the cooks want is a special order to cook, say, a soft or French omelet. “Dude, read the room. You’re going to get a Denver omelet like everyone else,” one of the chefs says.

“Nicely browned,” another chef says, and they all chuckle. Golden brown eggs may look good, but they are actually burned. Omelets, like scrambled eggs, should be bright yellow.

They may have a point, but it’s not the only time they show contempt for their customers. One says, “Everyone has been to a (disastrous) brunch where they were the problem.” But they also demonstrate contempt for their own staffs.

Because brunch is served in the morning, sometimes it has to be staffed by people who worked the night before. One of the chefs said he used to intentionally make people work the morning shift after working the previous night as a way of punishing them. “I used to take (stuff) way too personal.

I was so petty about (stuff) like that,” he says. Tellingly, the chefs themselves don’t work at brunch — at larger restaurants, chef is an administrative and managerial position and does not cook for customers. One chef says he would open a brunch restaurant, but he would never work at it.

After spending 10 minutes talking about why chefs hate brunch, the chefs eventually concede that it isn’t the chefs who hate brunch, it’s the cooks who cook it and the servers who serve it. Because brunch tends to be inexpensive, tips are generally low for a lot of work. The one chef in the group who still cooks says, with some relief, that brunch is becoming less popular.

People are going back to the basics, which means the less strenuous — for restaurants — meal of breakfast. So enjoy brunch out while you can. But if you go, be sure to tip well.

And for heaven’s sake, try to avoid being sick in the bathroom..