This week, at a glance:
- Hot Take: Breakfast is the New Date Night
- Cook: Banana Dutch Baby
- Watch: Is Counter Service the Future of Fine Dining?
- Hot Take: Hospitality Included
🤔🌶️ Hot Take
Breakfast is the New Date Night
Breakfast reservations at 9am are up 19% year over year. 10am? Up 15%. And it's not just early risers. Breakfast dates are actually becoming a thing.
The data says it's partly an economic trade-down. Breakfast is cheaper than dinner. Inflation is real. But I think there's something else going on too. Concepts like Snooze, Two Hands in New York, and places like La Panga in the East Village have turned breakfast into a real destination meal.
It's also the only meal where dessert is socially acceptable as the main course. French toast, pancakes, Dutch babies... You can eat cake at 9am, and nobody judges you. Although I will say, the romance factor gets a little dicey when you're across from someone navigating a runny egg or walking in with smoked fish breath. Curious what others think.
👉 Chime in on Linkedin or on Instagram
🎙️ The meez Podcast
Is Counter Service the Future of Fine Dining?
Arjav Ezekiel is the co-owner of Birdies in Austin, a restaurant that won Food and Wine's Best New Restaurant, serving a six-course tasting menu at a counter. No reservations, no table service, $79. They paid back their build-out in 10 months.
This episode gets into what happens when you strip away the traditional fine dining model and rebuild from scratch. Arjav also worked at Union Square Hospitality Group during the hospitality included era, so he's got a perspective on tipping culture that most people don't.
- Counter service fine dining and why it works at Birdies
- The real reason hospitality included failed
- Why is labor the problem restaurants keep not solving
- $1.55 trillion in forecasted restaurant revenue for 2026
- How Birdies tracks guest details at the counter for personal touches
- The tipping debate: servers, cooks, and who deserves what
🤔🌶️ Hot Take
Hospitality Included
I think Danny Meyer had good intent. And I def think Matt and Mike's take is pretty harsh. No one can predict human behavior, and it's clear there was inequity in how tips are dispersed between FOH and BOH. Having worked for Danny (well, Floyd Cardoz via Danny), I can 100% attest to his dedication to taking care of employees first. It's in the DNA of the company.
Matt and Mike's take is that believing five or six fine dining groups in Manhattan could shift an entire country's tipping culture through the private sector showed a lack of leadership and sophistication about how systemic change actually works.
It obviously did not work out well. There was a pretty big exodus in staff, plus diners couldn't wrap their head around seeing a higher price tag for dishes, bottles of wine, etc. that were previously much cheaper. Arjav put it perfectly: if a guest is used to buying a $60 bottle of wine and tipping $12, they don't just buy the $72 bottle when tips are included. They buy the $60 bottle. Revenue drops.
I do think we should still be talking about how tip pools get allocated between front and back of house. Arjav runs Birdies in Texas, where there's no rule about tip credit eligibility, so they can spread it more evenly. That feels closer to a real solution than five restaurants trying to change a country.
👉 Chime in on Linkedin or on Instagram
Recipe:
Banana Dutch Baby
A Dutch baby is one of those things that looks way more impressive than it actually is to make. You get this giant, puffy, golden pancake that rises up over the edges of the skillet, and all you really did was blend some eggs, flour, milk, and butter and throw it in the oven.
Adding the banana and the brown butter from caramelizing the banana to the batter is a really nice touch. (Cue the Jack Johnson lyrics.)
Want to Be a Guest on The meez Podcast?
We are always looking for operators, chefs, and food industry leaders who have a story to tell.
meez is the recipe software that helps chefs create, organize, and execute profitable recipes with precision.
