We came to Homestead for an after-graduation brunch, hoping to celebrate a milestone with a good…read moremeal. There were nine of us--not exactly a tiny table, but hardly the kind of group that should throw a restaurant into chaos.
To be fair, we did wait for two people in our party before ordering food. It was probably 20-30 minutes, and we made it very clear to our server that we were waiting. We also weren't just camping out at the table. We started with drinks while we waited, so the restaurant was already making money from our table before the kitchen ever had to cook a single thing. Once everyone arrived, we placed one order together. No staggered tickets, no special requests, no unnecessary complications.
The thing is... the restaurant was practically empty.
If anything, I would've thought they'd be happy to have a table of nine on a slow brunch. Instead, it felt like we were an inconvenience.
Once we finally ordered, it was another 30-plus minutes before much of anything happened. Our waitress wasn't rude, but she also wasn't particularly interested in us being there. She checked the boxes, but just barely. It felt less like hospitality and more like someone waiting for the end of their shift.
What made the whole experience even stranger was looking around the restaurant. It wasn't busy, yet several employees seemed to be standing around talking while we sat waiting. During the hour or two we were there, I think only a couple of other parties came through the door. At one point there were two hostesses managing what amounted to a trickle of guests while tables that were already seated waited on drinks, food, and attention. Maybe there's more going on behind the scenes than I could see, but from where we were sitting, it felt less like they needed more people and more like they needed to use the people they already had a little better.
Then came the mimosas.
These were less mimosas and more "suggestions of citrus." It was basically champagne with a couple thoughts of orange juice. At one point we had to ask for more orange juice just to get it to the legally recognized definition of a mimosa. They tasted like champagne that heard flavored sparkling water was popular and decided to reinvent itself. There was a whole lot of "mim" and not much "osa."
At nearly $14 each, I expected something a little more festive and a little less... chemistry experiment.
For food, I ordered the Fried Green Tomato Benny: two biscuits, fried green tomatoes, poached eggs, Cholula hollandaise, and fresh fruit. On paper, that's a fantastic brunch.
In reality, it was aggressively average.
Nothing was quite hot enough. The biscuits had crossed that invisible line between baked and overbaked, where every bite makes you wonder if they're fresh or just committed to the bit. The whole dish felt like it had spent just a few too many minutes waiting for someone to remember it existed.
And then there was the fruit.
You know the kind of fruit bowl where every piece somehow tastes exactly the same because it's been sitting in the same juice for hours? That's what this was. Cheap melon, tired grapes, and enough pooled juice to ensure every bite shared the same identity crisis.
To top it all off, the Benny was around $18, and the mimosas were pushing $14 each. I'm not going to call it a scam because words have meanings. Nobody tricked us. The prices were right there on the menu.
We knew exactly what we were doing.
We just expected the experience to justify it.
On the bright side, the restaurant looks like it was designed by someone who has never met food, but has definitely met Pinterest.
And honestly, it shows. Modern farmhouse, soft lighting, curated everything--it nails the aesthetic. Which is great, because you'll have plenty to look at while everything else catches up.
It's funny how common this is now: it's easier than ever to make something look finished. You can polish the surface until it feels complete, even when the inside still isn't.
Anyway--great aesthetics. The rest feels like it's still figuring itself out.
