Snooze, An A.m. Eatery - La Jolla

This restaurant is one of the popular brunch spots in San Diego. It always seems to be crowded, so I was glad to find out that you can join the waitlist on Yelp. We signed up online and ended up waiting about an hour on a Saturday morning. The food is quite good, and the prices are reasonable. However, because they are so busy, the service is just okay. We waited around 25-30 minutes for our food. On the bright side, they do offer to split the plates for you if you're sharing, which is very convenient.

We’re big fans of the Hillcrest location, so we were excited to try the La Jolla spot. We were informed there would be a nearly 45-minute wait for a table—unless we opted for bar seating. We decided to go for it, and we’re so glad we did! The service was prompt, the food was absolutely delicious, and the music created a great atmosphere. I tried the special pancake dish, Mocha Espresso something or other, and it was simply out of this world—so good I almost fainted! We will definitely return, and we’ll be on the lookout for bar seating again! One tip: be patient with parking; it’s La Jolla after all.

Credit where due, they’re doing more to be sustainable than a lot of competitors but I personally audited their claims and found a ton of problems. The last report was from 2019, and a lot of the specific attempts at advertising environmental claims were misleading or just incorrect. Obviously almost nobody has the time or energy to understand the full reports and data behind it, but I do. And it’s a great effort compared to fast food and garbage beside, but “cage free” eggs for instance are STILL FACTORY FARMED! Open pasture, renewable and regenerative agriculture, small family farms, farms you can list by name — relationships with farms that’s what makes a restaurant truly sustainable and none of that is here.When you make these huge green claims you’re not expecting people to read fine print, but it puts you in the spotlight for someone to actually check them!The chain reports to earn something like 6X the cost of each employee in revenue, so they’re clearly wildly profitable and could afford to make legitimately green choices but they’re doing the bare minimum and patting themselves on the back for it.Service was very slow and inattentive, the tap water tastes of chlorine (filters please! but that’s not all their fault; it’s the city. The food is light on flavor, big on calories.The hot sauce brands were reasonably ethical so that was nice, and likewise points for jams and maple syrups. But industrially produced Heinz ketchup is a step backward, corn syrup junk. They claim to use a better brand in their 2019 report and clearly stopped using that brand to save money! So they may well be less sustainable than they were 4 years ago. Sigh.Flatware and glasses were worn and not totally clean. Chairs and tables cheap plastic and bare metal.Pricing pretty reasonable so that’s a fair note that keeps a few of the stars. A humble 3/5. Room for improvement, clearly someone at the company is trying but not nearly hard enough. If it stops you from going to ihop, sure, come here instead. By all means that’s a better choice but you can buy way higher quality food in the grocery store next door.

My family and I enjoy traveling, and this morning we were unsure where to have breakfast. We stumbled upon this charming little restaurant with a lovely family atmosphere. We tried the eggs Benedict with ham and the hash browns, and they were fantastic! We also loved the hot chai tea, which was perfect for the chilly morning in La Jolla. I recommend arriving early for seating availability, as we noticed the place got quite busy as the morning went on!

Best breakfast I've had in awhile, I love this spot even though the wait is crazy. Excellent flavors, excellent quality. Highly recommended. Get the habanero pork belly Benedict or the fried rice, so goodFood: 5/5